Teaching Statistics

All we do is play games...

2012-01-05T16:09:00.000-08:00

After yesterday's mini meltdown, I was so glad to have a good day today! Overall, I'm very pleased with how this week's lessons have gone, so I thought I would share for another other stat teachers out there.

Tuesday - Fake it or Make it
I modified my original "Fake it or Make it" idea based on this document that I found online. I modified the handouts from the document so that I could fit two data sets on one page. On the front, I used the Heads/Tails check sheet, then on the back, I put the data tables for total heads and tails, the frequency table for cluster size, and a small graph for them to graph cluster size. The kids really enjoyed seeing if they could trip me up and it was fun to see if their graph matched the expected values given in the document. When I first read this document, it reminded me of Benford's Law, so I showed a quick video that @approx_normal found online and we had a class discussion about comparing our observed results to our expected results and what that means. I LOVE that this activity allowed me to plant some seeds for inference and hypothesis testing!! The kids loved that they learned how to not get caught if they embezzle money.... *sigh* :)

Wednesday - Spelling Bee Day 1
Also based on the PCMI probability packet, the Spelling Bee game went over very well. I created Spelling Bee cards based on The Price is Right game, then laminated and cut them out (yay for Netflix as I cut cut cut 16 sets of cards). We started class by watching a video from YouTube and I asked them to make a prediction on the chance of winning the car. Then I introduced the idea of a simulation and we started exploring the game using the game cards. Each pair of students played 20 games, recording the number of Cs, As, Rs, and CAR cards and whether or not they won. After they were done playing, they calculated the true proportion of each type of card and their personal proportion of each type of card in order to compare them. This actually opened up a discussion on the Law of Large Numbers. BONUS!

Thursday - Spelling Bee Day 2
Today, we continued with the Spelling Bee game. At the front of the room, I had a graph prepared for them and each pair of students put a dot (I <3 smiley face stickers) for their proportion of wins.

This allowed me to introduce the idea of a Sampling Distribution (MAJOR WIN!). We discussed that based on all of our results that a pattern was emerging that would allow us to make an educated guess (basic idea of a confidence interval). The students then came up with their educated guess for the true chance of winning the car based on the data gathered. In case you are wondering, the true chance of winning the Spelling Bee game is 73.5% :) From there, I asked the kids to pretend that I really DID have a life and therefore no time to cut out 16 sets of cards - what could we have used instead to run our simulation? Most kids immediately jumped back to the random number table or putting numbers in a hat (DOUBLE YAY!). This was a great intro to using the random number table for simulations, which is what we'll discuss tomorrow....

Friday - Random Number Tables
I'm still brewing some ideas for tomorrow, but I think one of them will be this problem from the PCMI probability set...

You get 1 point every time you flip heads. But anytime you flip tails you're in "danger". If you flip tails a section time consecutively, you "bust" and lose all your points (but continue playing).

This game is just begging to be simulated... :) I think we'll play it as a class together using a coin flipper program on the board, then turn to a simulation to figure out the average score and whether you can go without busting.

If you made it this far, thanks for reading :) It's been a fun week so far and honestly, this is the MOST fun I've had teaching probability ever!

Would you like cheese with your w(h)ine?

2012-01-04T17:35:00.000-08:00

First off, let me apologize... this is going to be a random, whiny, bitchy post. Every year, I have at least one meltdown with regard to the imbalance in my life of school vs home.... feel free to ignore this post because this is definitely one of those times :)

Grades - UGH!
Today was day 2 of the new semester and grades were due. I hate this time of the year! Even though I had their exams graded in December, I always put off the rounding decisions until the end. Honestly, I've never been one to submit grades right away - I'm always a "pushing-the-deadline" kind of gal. (I've gotten worse over the years, maybe because I'm always thinking something better will come around and I will miss an opportunity.. but anywho, that has nothing to do with grades and why I hate them). I wish our transcripts showed number grades rather than letters. I hate that an 89.5 is an A and an 89.4 is a B, but that 0.1 of a percentage means NOTHING! The 89.5 kid doesn't know THAT much more info than the 89.4 kid! This wouldn't bother me AS much if we could give + and -, but its still annoying! Of course, with SBG, the students really have lots of control over their grade, so it was easier to deny the emails of "Will you round my 79.3 to a B?" when the student had not come in for reassessments... :)

Feeling Frazzled
This year, we did not have a teacher work day as part of the winter break. This really is throwing me for a loop since I usually used that day to file papers, clean my room, clean the whiteboards, etc. So yesterday, on day 1 of the new semester, we hit the ground running. We've only been back two days now and I already feel like I need a two week break! I have upteen unfinished piddly projects that need to happen, but I just don't have the time to get it all done. One of my New Year's resolutions was to try to get home earlier and that's already shot. :( However, they have decided to start turning off the hallway lights at work at 5pm, plus my room sensor turns off the lights every 10 minutes (it's motion activated and for some reason I just don't dance a jig while grading papers!), so that makes for a really piss-poor work environment in the winter!

Prep Work
Hubby also took off work during Winter Break, so I tried to limit my school work time. The first week, we spent time relaxing, decluttering the house, and random tidbits that needed to happen. The second week, I knew I needed to work a bit each day, so I did. However, by the end of the break, I was "Evil Groutchy Wife" because I felt behind. I *hate* that a teacher's to-do list is never quite done, it's just "done enough for now". In order to do this job right, we should teach 2 classes and have a plan period for the other 4 hours of the day. Instead, a lot of the prep goes home with me and "Evil Groutchy Wife" appears. I keep thinking it will get better, but I'm on year 12 of teaching AP and so far I haven't stopped learning and growing and changing things to make them better. My prep work over the years has changed. In the early years, it was more about ME learning the content in order to maybe teach it half-way decently. (Please note, it's not that I didn't KNOW the material, but knowing it and teaching it are two different issues). I'm well past that point of prep work being content based, so now the prep work is more of a "Build a Better Mousetrap" variety. The "Mousetrap" prep work is almost MORE time consuming because I want students to make connections, be more self-led, keep them enaged with the material, discover patterns and ideas, and develop more of the mathematical "habits of mind" that we hear about.

Positive Note
We've all heard from our principals to make sure we put at least one positive comment into our phone calls home for those unruly students, so here's mine... No matter how grumpy I feel, I do love what I do. I love the feeling I get when chatting with my teacher friends about new ideas to try. I love watching my students laugh the past few days as we've explored Fake Coin Flips and The Price is Right. And that, my friends, is what keeps me coming back year after year....

Exit Slips

2011-12-28T10:38:00.000-08:00

For several years, I've wanted to do exit slips, but I just never could get it organized to my liking. I understand the benefit of them and can see them being an awesome thing in my classroom.

Enter in some discussions with my bestie, @approx_normal... she does her warmups on index cards and then hands them back for the students do to the exit question on the back and put it in a box by the door. But, like @approx_normal, I also suck at closures and often run out of time....

So today, while she and I are discussing some ideas for the spring semester, I get a brainstorm.... What if I made a poster of generic exit-questions and posted it in my classroom? For example...

1. Summarize the important points of today's lesson

2. Write 3 things you learned, 2 things you are fuzzy on, and 1 question you still have.

3. Etc

Then, at the end of the hour, I could just direct student's attention to the poster and tell them to write their response to question number ___ and put their index card in the box as they leave the room.

I need more exit ticket prompts though.... Ideas? :)

Simulations based on Game Shows

2011-12-27T08:11:00.000-08:00

The PCMI Probability problems had a "Game of the Day", oftentimes related to the King of Game Shows - The Price is Right. I don't know about you, but as a kid, whenever I was home sick, I always loved watching TPIR. (Honestly, though, I miss Bob Barker....)

Anyway, one of the "Game of the Day" activities in the PCMI packet is the "Spelling Bee" game, in which contestants select cards and hope to spell the word "CAR". I plan to show a clip of the game from TPIR website and ask my students to figure out the proability of winning. Of course, the probability isn't the easiest one to calculate, especially right after a 2 week break, so it will be a natural lead-in to simulations. I found this worksheet/writeup online and plan to use it as a guideline. In their partners, the kids will run through the simulation several times, then combine their data with another pair of students to calculate the simulated chance of winning.

P.S. Like many people, my favorite TPIR game was Plinko. I really want this game board from Oriental Trading...Disc Drop Game

Real or Fake?

2011-12-27T07:58:00.000-08:00

Yesterday I went through the PCMI probability problems from 2007 and found some really neat ideas to use over the next few weeks. I plan to use one of the activities to start us off on day 1 next week.

The basic idea is for groups to create two datasets of a coin flip. First, they will fake a dataset of 240 coin flips, then they will create a real dataset by actually flipping the coin. They will write these two datasets on index cards. Using their two datasets, they will discuss with a partner and come up with a way to determine if a new dataset is real or fake. I will then have them exchange their cards with another pair of students and use their "test" to determine which card has the real data and which card has the fake data. If time allows, there are some additional coin flip datasets in the PCMI packet that I will put up for discussion.

At some point after that - not sure if I'll do it the next day or a few weeks later - the PCMI packet went on to use an inference test to determine if a dataset was real or fake. By splitting the coinflips into sets of 2 (or 3 or whatever), you could keep track of how many HH/HT/TH/TT combinations there were and compare them to the expected 1:3:3:1 ratio. This would provide an interesting introduction to inference testing and p-values, as well as tying in to binomial expansion and pascal's triangle.

This activity should be a good way to get them back into the school frame of mind, thinking about the start of inference techniques, and drawing conclusions from data. If I'm really good this week, I'll get it together in a google form.... We'll see how that goes :)

Problem Sets and Probability

2011-12-26T10:03:00.000-08:00

Winter break is halfway over - where, oh where, did it go?? :) Last week, I spent time cleaning house, reading novels, and in general, just enjoying the off time. However, all good things must eventually come to an end, so this week, I vowed to work at least one hour per day on school stuff. (wishful thinking?)

Probability is one of my weakest areas as a stats teacher. Prior to going on break, we had covered basic probability, disjoint events, independent events, venn diagrams, tables, trees, etc. Next week, when we go back, we'll do simulations and probability distributions. In the past, I've not been pleased with how this unit turned out, so I'm hoping to do it better this year. A few weeks ago I ran across this problem set from the 2007 PCMI and today I've been working through it. So far, I have some ideas I think will work, especially for simulations. I really like the Game of the Day activities and plan to use several of them to spark conversation in my class.

Semester Reflections

2011-12-15T11:22:00.000-08:00

As I sit and watch my students working diligently on their semester
final, I am so grateful that winter break is upon us. It has been a
whorlwind of a semester, filled with new challenges, new triumphs, new
frustrations, and a huge lack of time to sit and write about it.

One of my biggest challenges at the start of the year was how to
manage 130 kids in AP Stat. If you've never looked at the AP
Curriculum, it's very writing intensive and conceptual - not your
run-of-the-mill right/wrong math class. It has worked out fairly
well, and while I am not able to grade assessments as quickly as I
would like, I have amazing students and they have really shined this
year. Part of how I've managed is by two things - active learning and
standards based grading. Over the past few years, I have transitioned
more and more away from lecturing and this year is even more so.
Since AP Stat is my only major prep, I have really put a lot of time
into developing quality lessons, making connections, and tying things
together this year. In class, the *kids* are the ones working their
tails off. They sit in partners, so they have someone to turn to when
they are stuck. They work with their partners on a daily basis while
discussing and working problems. The problems that in the past I
might have assigned as "homework" get worked in class instead. They
do not sit and watch me work problems and do examples - THEY tackle
the problems, work through it with their partner, then we discuss it
as a class. Overall, this has led to high engagement, which has shown
up in their assssments.

The second thing that I tackled this year was using Standards Based
Grading in my AP class. I had started this journey last year with
Algebra 2, and at the time, had no idea how it would work in AP.
While it's still a learning process, overall I do really like having
the more detailed information about student's understanding of each
concept. There are still some kinks to be worked out, like the crowd
of people in my room this week for reassessments, but the pros far
outweigh the cons. The kids have embraced SBG with open arms and over
time have seen the benefit of having to remediate and reassess, of
having detailed grade reporting, and learning from their mistakes. I
have heard the statement, "I wish Mrs/Mr X did SBG too!", many, many
times over this semester. There definitely have been challenges to
SBG though... writing assessments that really get to the heart of the
objective, writing reassessments that cover the same concept without
being identical to the original, the time it takes just to grade that
volume of papers, etc. But overall, I'm happy with how this semester
has turned out.

As I reflect back over the past year and a half, I realize how
different I am now as compared to when I started this journey. My
philosphy on what really matters, what grades should mean, how to
structure my class, so many things. I was one of those teacher that
would have sworn "if you don't grade it, they won't do it" and now I
see how wrong I was on a daily basis. My kids work their butts off
every day and it's NOT about how many grades I take - it's about being
engaged with the material and tapping into their intrinsic motivation
to learn. It's not always been a smooth path, but this was a journey
well worth the time and energy it took to get where I am today.

#statchat anyone?

2011-10-11T12:58:00.000-07:00

First, let me preface this by saying I am having a *great* year.
Statistics has long been my passion and this year I am blessed to
teach AP Stat all day, plus one Intro to Stat class at the uni. I
really love only having one core class to prep for, my lesson plans
are quick to write, and in the case of a lab day, I don't have to set
up and tear down the labs multiple times. It's been great to branch
out and work with the science teachers on the integration of math and
science as well as exploring new ways to use technology in my
classroom.

However, what I did NOT anticipate about this year was how much I
would miss the daily collaboration of my Algebra 2 buddies. For the
past several years, I have taught next to Partner Teacher and we have
joked that if we could put both our brains into one teacher, that we
would be unstoppable. This year, though, I moved across the parking
lot to a new building, leaving behind many of my close friends AND I
no longer teach Algebra 2, so I don't have the collaboration partners
that I am used to. This adds up to a year of feeling pretty alone in
my math world. I am one of those teachers that really learns through
brainstorming and discussion. I love the flow of ideas that can come
from a discussion on "How do you teach this topic?" or "My kids keep
messing up here - what do you do?" or "Dang, they bombed that quiz -
what now?"

This past Sunday, my feeling of isolation really came to a head and I
was very frustrated. In general, I believe in being proactive, so I
got on twitter that afternoon/evening and asked if anyone would be
interested in a weekly #statchat discussion. It doesn't have to be
ultra formal, I just want a time to talk to other stat teachers and
bounce ideas, labs, activities, suggestions, etc. I got a few
positive replies, so I thought I'd post here too - so, let me see a
show of hands... Anyone up for a weekly #statchat?

Til next time... :)

Active Learning

2011-10-09T11:32:00.000-07:00

Tomorrow is my yearly Pre-Evaluation conference with my principal. Last week, he sent out an email asking for our professional goal for this year and suggested that it tie into our high school's goal of "increasing student engagement both in and out of the classroom." I decided that my goal for the year would be using Active Learning strategies on a regular basis.

I wrote about Active Learning last summer in this post. However, since then, I've become even more concerned that "classrooms are a place where students go to watch teachers work." The problem, for me at least, is how to solve this. I have a large collection of games, labs, activities, etc that I like to use, but I want more activities that are quick 5-10 minute activities (like Think-Pair-Share) that could be used during instructional time. Another issue I have is that I teach seniors and so many of the collaborative activities are fairly corny and would not go over well with my students. Yet a third issue I have is that while I have a large classroom, it feels fairly small with 32 bodies, so a lot of "move around activities" are hard to do.

Here are some of my tried and true favorites:

Partner Discussions
My classroom is set up in pairs. Daily, students talk to and work with their partners to discuss problems. I would like to develop some more specific strategies to use with the partners, beyond Think-Pair-Share.

Half Sheets
This strategy was first known as Relay Race and came from an ebay book that I got many many years ago. It is a definitely favorite amongst my students. Students work in pairs (or groups of 4) to work through problems. They get one problem (half sheet) at a time, bring it up to be checked, then get the next one to work on. The kids love this and I really like the individual feedback I can give to each group. This is again more of a review game though.

Gallery Walk
I have used a Gallery Walk with several concepts and I'm always impressed by the discussion that comes out of it. I love this idea and wish I could use it more often, but it's again a "move around" activity and that limits its usability. I have 8 groups of 4, but only whiteboard space for 6 groups, so I really need to invest in some of the "showerboard" whiteboards.

Exit Tickets
I really like the idea of Exit Tickets, but I just can't seem to make them work for me. I would love to hear how they are used in other classrooms.

What are your favorite strategies?

Math/Science Partnership - part 2

2011-10-09T10:50:00.000-07:00

I have to admit, I'm so glad September is over! For most of the month, I felt so overwhelmed and behind and unable to catch up.

Anyway, the AP Env Sci (APES) teacher and I were able to get our students together to do the Quadrat Analysis activity. On the first day, we all met in her room as she talked about what QA is and why it is useful to scientists. I jumped in a few times to ask my students why we wouldn't want to take a census and what kind of sampling method QA was for us. Then we split up into groups of 4, with each group having 2 APES students and 2 Stat students. We gave each group a map and a yellow square of acetate and they were off to collect their data. They dropped the acetate 10 times, recording the species found in their sample. After their 10 trials, they found the average for each species, then multiplied by a conversion factor to find a population estimate for the land area. Finally, the groups put their data into a Google Form.

On Day 2, we started out in my room as I discussed the analysis that we were going to do. From the previous day's G-Form, I had compiled the population estimates for the 16 species on the map and each group was going to have one species to analyze. This proved to be a great review for my students on how to make well-done graphs, write descriptions, and test for outliers. Each group was given an 11x17 piece of paper to make a mini-poster for their species. The posters were then displayed for our Open House festitivies.

Overall, I was happy with how our first collaboration went and I think the students walked away with a better knowledge of how the course content overlaps.

Math/Science Partnership

2011-09-23T20:51:00.000-07:00

One of the goals for my high school is to develop a math/science partnership to help students make connections between the content areas. The commitment to this goal can be seen in our new building, where math and science classrooms are side by side rather than in different wings, as in a traditional facility. This opens up some unique collaborative opportunities for us since I now have daily access to the biological science teachers and the activities/labs they do in their classrooms.

Enter the AP Environmental Science (APES) teacher. She and I have collaborated before and actually took a week long workshop together last summer in an effort to see where our curriculums collided. Stat has the unique ability to fit in with so many curriculums that I could easily tie into just about any teacher's lesson plans if I truly tried. Anyway, earlier in the week, the APES teacher came to me with a lab she was doing that involved Chi-Square tests. Ultimately, the idea behind her lab was Natural Selection - the ability of a predator to find and kill their prey and the ability of the prey to hide from a predator. Her students had taken 3 types of beans and spread them into two differing habitats (aka the sidewalk and the grass) and recorded which prey was killed in each habitat. They organized the data into a table and that's where the Chi-Square Test came in. Now, I don't get to Chi-Square until April, but I had just finished contingency tables and segmented bar charts, so I was pretty bummed to miss out on such a neat collaborative activity.

Today was test day, so I went over to my APES neighbor and asked her for a copy of a couple of the labs she had mentioned so that I could read over them and jot down notes for next year. During our short chat, she mentioned another lab that she said she would find and bring over to my room. Low and behold if she didn't show up with this map:

With this lab, the students have to count the species of plants to determine the potential environmental impact of the plants. My students have already been through the idea that a census isn't usually practical and is oftentimes inaccurate. We have also discussed the different random sampling methods used to generate data. This lab will let them see a real example of cluster sampling and using that to estimate a population parameter. They will drop the yellow acetate square 10 times, count the various species in the square, find the average of their 10 trials, and then use a conversion factor to estimate the population parameter. The next day, each of my student pairs will get the data for one species, have to display it in both a histogram and boxplot, and then describe the distribution of their species. I'm thinking this will be a great summary of the material we've covered thus far.

If you have any other ideas on how to integrate math and science, please leave it in the comments... We're in the baby steps phase right now, but eager to learn more!

What a great day!

2011-09-07T17:51:00.000-07:00

Today was one of those days that you just feel good about. Lessons went smoothly, the a-ha moment happened at just the right time, and kids were engaged.

First off, let me preface this by saying that for the most part, I am enjoying teaching AP Statistics all day long. Sometimes I get into that "Did I already say that?" rut, but overall, it's fun to be sharing my passion for stat with the students. I kind of miss Algebra 2 and I definitely miss collaborating with my Algebra 2 buddies, but after a couple of years where stat got pushed to the back burner, it's great to have the time to really devote to engaging lessons and an active classroom.

Right now in AP Stat, we are deep into the Experiments chapter. This year I am trying to bring in more real life articles and having them analyze them. Last week we discussed the vocabulary of experiments and the required elements of experimental design, then ended the week by analyzing some articles. Each group got their own article and an analysis sheet. Working with their partner, they broke down the article using the language of statistics. That brings us to today.... When class started, each group (my kids are seated in pairs) had a copy of this article about the Placebo Effect. They had to read and discuss it with their partner, then write a summary of it in their warmup folders. Then we had a sharing session to see what they had found interesting in the article. That immediately got us thinking that if the placebo effect can be so powerful, how well does the REAL treatment have to perform to be considered the "winner". We had briefly talked about the idea of Statistical Significance earlier in the year, so I pulled out another psychological experiment (Zener Cards and ESP) and we tested our class for ESP. This lead us into a discussion of how many right answers they expected to get, how many they actually got, and if that was a big enough difference to convince them of our class's ESP ability.

Then the grand finale (and lead-in for tomorrow), I told them we needed to do some quick review of all of that vocabulary from last week. I pulled up the Fish Tank problem from the 1997 exam. (Can I just say I really *love* the Snipping Tool in Win7!) I asked the students to identify the experimental units, the explantory variable, the treatments, and the response variable. Then we designed a Completely Randomized experiment for the fish tanks. We sketched the experiment on the whiteboard, then talked about randomization. I had the groups discuss how they would assign the fish food and really had some great responses (spinners, dice, etc). When someone said "Put the numbers 1-8 in a hat and mix well", I played it up and said "OH MY GOSH! That's what I did too!!!" I brought out my paper bag with 8 poker chips and we assigned the treatments. In all of my classes someone then said "But wait!!! What about the Temperature issue???" That led to a great discussion on confounding variables and at the end of the hour, I left them with the task to determine how to assign the new and old fish food to the tanks with respect to the temperature issue. Tomorrow, their warmup will be to write down their method and we should be able to segue into blocking and why blocking reduces variability.

However, every great day usually has a bummer moment too. I plan to also talk about matched pairs tomorrow and wanted to intro it using the Boots problem, so when hubs was running errands after work, I asked him to check on some really cheap boots that I could use as a prop. For some reason, in past years, students have not really understood that the new water proofing method does NOT change the appearance of the boots, they look identical. I was hoping with the two physical sets of boots that the kids would get that you could assign one boot of each type to a person and see which one resisted water the best, but it was going to cost close to $50 for 2 pairs of boots and that was quickly vetoed!

Now to figure out the blocking dogs activity to see if I want to tackle that this week too. :)

Another year has begun...

2011-08-22T17:46:00.000-07:00

And what a year it has already been! New building, new technology, new hallmates, new gradebook, the list goes on and on! Overall, it's been pretty good, but having never moved into a new building, I wasn't prepared for the little details that were commonplace before, like pencil sharpeners. :)

My schedule also changed in the days leading up to the official start of school. Last year, we had 90 AP Stat students in 4 sections. This year's senior class is the first class that took 8th grade Algebra 1 as an on-level class (rather than honors as before), so that left a lot of juniors that took Pre-Calc and wanted a 4th year of math. Enter AP Stat - our enrollment jumped to 215 in 7 sections at last count. (And for those AP Stat teachers out there that are half jealous and half "how the heck are you going to grade all that" - I don't know yet....) So needless to say, I now teach AP all day long (and one hour for my AVID seniors).

So today was day 3 with the kids and I really am enjoying them overall. Thursday and Friday we did some introductory material of "Stats in the news" and today was our first real day of material. Because of the success of the Gallery Walk that I did last year, I did something similar today. The first chapter of my textbook talks about how important it is to know the context of data - the W's if you will (Who/What/When/etc). After a brief introduction to the W's and a class example, off to the boards we went. One nice feature of my new classroom is LOTS of whiteboard space. I can fit 8 groups of students at the whiteboards, so I had taken some scenerios, printed them on cardstock, and posted them around the room (held to the board with magnets) with a #1, #2, etc above them. I numbered my students and sent them to the boards to the corresponding number. As a group, they read the problem, discussed and agreed upon the Ws and wrote it on the board. When they were done, they took the problem card down, flipped it over to reveal the answers and graded themselves. Then they erased their work, rotated to the next station and did it again. We continued until they all felt comfortable with identifying the W's.

All in all, I'm pleased with the first days of school and I'm excited to see what this year brings. For the past two years, AP has kind of been on the back burner because of Algebra 2, so I'm eager to get back into the planning of AP and really trying some new things.

Now if only that morning alarm wasn't quite so early.... *sigh*

Summertime Reading

2011-07-23T09:38:00.000-07:00

One of my favorite things to do in the summer is to read and one of my favorite books to read once the reality of Back-to-School sets in is a trio of books by David R. Johnson. I found Mr. Johnson's first book "Every Minute Counts" early on in my career and quickly bought the sequels "Making Minutes Count Even More" and "Motivation Counts". I don't even know if these books are in print any more, but they have been my summer staple for years. I also lend them to student teachers and new teachers to read. The books are short, more like booklets, with around 100 pages in them, so they are quick to read but they definitely pack a punch.

Last night, I decided it was time to start my yearly re-read and decided to pick up the third book. The first two are more about classroom management and how to set up your routine, while the last book is more about best practices in math. "Motivation Counts" was published in 1994 and while I was reading it, it really struck me how slow education is to embrace change in our teaching methods. Other than the fancy technology that now populates classrooms, I would venture to guess that most classrooms have the same structure that they did 50+ years ago. Even with the research on best practices, how to engage learners, teachers that fully agree that change needs to occur, it is sometimes so overwhelming that we quickly fall back into old habits and comfortable routines. We tend to teach the way we were taught by teachers who taught the way they were taught by teachers... (rinse, repeat).

Here's the quote that got me: (remember, this book is close to 20 years old now)

Lesson plans for the traditional classroom routine, as you can see from this list, detail *my* activities; they do not include what *the students* should be doing during class....

..In a recent television interview, a CEO in a major industry cited the main objectives for our schools as follows:
Teach problem-solving experiences and skills.
Teach communication skills.
Teach students how to learn.
Teach students how to work effectively as a team member.
Give students an ability to handle change.
...it is very obvious that what industry wants, and what the traditional rountine offers, are not at all compatiable - or even complementary. Industry wants involved, active thinkers who can work together and deal creatively with the unexpected....

I think most of us know and agree with the above and even strive to accomplish those goals. For years, this quote has really hit me in the gut. I know I start the school year with big plans, but as reality sets in, it can be easy to fall back on that traditional routine where *I* am doing the work and the students sit back passively. I find it wild, though, that today's goals are still what they were 20 years ago and that little progress has been made in changing what a traditional math classroom looks like.

I can easily say that, of all the professional books I've read through the years, this trio of books have had the most profound influence on me as a teacher. Even though I've read these books numerous times, they never fail to inspire me and make me think about how to be more effective in the classroom.

What is your must-read book for teachers?

Incorporating Writing in Math

2011-07-21T18:26:00.000-07:00

With students returning in just a few weeks, I am digging through old materials looking for lesson ideas. Tonight, I ran across this...

The question "why so much writing?" can be answered in three basic ways:
1. Writing promotes clear thinking.
2. Writing promotes effective and long-term retention of what has been learned.
3. Writing provides individuals and groups in a complex world with a voice and a record.

Students need to understand that writing is the single most powerful tool for thinking, learning and participating in the broad culture of a society.

Source: Write Path Mathematics from AVID

Now my question... how do you incorporate writing in your classroom?

Using SBG in AP Stat

2011-07-06T17:43:00.000-07:00

Last year I implemented SBG in Algebra 2 and loved it. However, I just could not wrap my head around how to implement it in AP Stat, so I spent a lot of time this past year thinking on how I could make it work. This is more of a mind-dump of ideas than a complete plan - a way of getting my thoughts down on paper and put it out there so that I can analyze it further.

This Past Year
For SY 2010-11, grading in AP was pretty traditional for me. I had three categories in my gradebook - Tests/Quizzes (65%), Assignments (20%), and Final Exam (15%). The Assignments Category contained pretty everything that wasn't a test or quiz. This included weekly AP MC practice, POWs (Problem of the Week AP problems), worksheets, labs, etc.

Tests and Quizzes
I already set up my Learning Targets (LTs) and provided them on my assignment sheets for each unit over this past year. (See Unit 3 HERE). I think each LT Quiz will cover 2-3 LTs. Where I struggle here is how to set up the LT Quiz. In Alg2, each LT has 3 problems (basic, average, and advanced levels), and I don't know how well that will work out with AP. I'm thinking maybe a MC question and then two FR questions. Of course, the layout will be different than the current Alg2 layout, allowing a question stem to be used for multiple LTs. I would still use a 4 point scale for each LT, like I do in Alg2. I think Unit Tests would pretty much stay the same as they are currently are, with a MC and a FR section, with the grade being a traditional test grade. This would allow the quizzes to be more skills based and assessed, whereas the tests would be more summative.

Remediation and Reassessment
This past year, students could retake a different form of a quiz *if* they provided proof of remediation, which was the practice problems on the assignment sheet for that chapter. They could also make test corrections if they did at least one problem from each objective on the assignment sheet. For the most part, I liked this plan. This next year, it would roughly stay the same, but to reassess a Learning Target, they would have to work the problems specific to that LT, rather than the entire chapter. For test corrections, they would still have to do at least one problem from each LT, PLUS have completed the Unit's Summary Sheets (see Unit 3 HERE)

Issues I need to figure out

What percentage breakdown do I want to use for Tests, LT Quizzes, Assignments, and Final Exam? The Final is district mandated to be at least 15%.
Actual AP questions often cover multiple topics. While I could edit them for the LT quizzes to only include the current objectives, I would like to have that cumulative element. This could be a reassessment opportunity, but with only one data point, how would I grade it on a rubric? Maybe those "mixed-bag" style questions should be on the summative tests, not the quizzes?
What to do about the Assignments category? I could leave a small percentage of the grade devoted to this category. In Alg2, their grade is purely assessments, and all of their assignments are non-graded, feedback only. I'm not sure I'm ready to go there in AP just yet. I do see value in the items placed in this category, but would not want them in either assessment category since a lot of it is lab investigations, partner work, etc. The other issue with this category is anything that isn't done in class has the potential to not be turned in on time, which leads us down that "late work" rabbit hole.
Should the tests be unit based (like they currently are), or time based (like every 6 weeks)? I like unit based tests because things seem so neatly packaged, but I worry that that last chapter being quizzed won't be graded/returned/processed/remediated/reassessed prior to the unit test date. I like the idea of every 6 weeks (covering LTs up to Chapter X), but worry it might feel awkward and not flow well, but theoretically would give that cumulative element needed in preparation for the AP exam in May.
One of my biggest issues is that I'm a pretty slow grader in AP. With Alg2, I almost always had their quizzes back to them the next day, sometimes it took two days, but rarely more than that. With AP, there is so much reading that you have to do that it really bogs down the process.

New idea for next year
One thing I've done for several years is a weekly POW that is a previous AP problem. I take these up on Friday and provide feedback and an AP score. This has worked fairly well for years, with the exception of a few kids here or there not getting them turned in, etc. This year, however, I had one class that was the class from hell when it came to turning these in. Seriously, out of 20 kids, it was pretty common to have less than half of the class turn it in. This really pissed me off, especially since they were assigned on Tuesday, given 10 minutes to work with their partner to read, discuss, and sketch out a solution, then 3 days until it was due in final format. After some thought and an "a-ha" moment earlier this summer, I think I am going to do two things to hopefully fix this problem. First, I am going to do daily warmups that consist of parts of AP problems. I can give up a few minutes a day to have the kids write a solution to a part of an AP problem. Then, I will either provide the scoring guideline to the class for whole-class feedback or sometimes take them up for more individualized feedback. Second, on a regular basis (maybe once a month?), we will have an AP quiz with maybe 4 AP problems and they have to choose 3 to completely answer and I'll grade it using the rubrics. I'm not sure where these will fit in my grading scheme yet though :)

Wrapping it up
I don't have the details all ironed out, but overall, I think this is a plan I can live with for a year while I refine it. I think this provides me the detail I want on the individual objectives while still maintaining the big picture/integrated structure needed in Statistics. Now that I've identified the big issues and concerns that I have, I think I will be able to work on strategies to fix those issues. As always, I appreciate any feedback and questions to help me guide my thinking.

My Summer To-Do List

2011-07-05T10:25:00.000-07:00

Oh my gosh, it's now July!!! Back to school aisles and sales are popping up all over and I have NOTHING done!! So, thanks to some inspiration from some blogger/twitter friends, I decided I had better put my to-do list down on "paper". There is just something satisfying by crossing things off of a list!

You will note that my to-do list is not something that easily lends itself to crossing off items. Most of these are a work in progress that will continue through the year. The idea behind this list is to help me focus on what I need to work on, rather than the nitty-gritty details. Some (most?) of these will not get done by August 15th, but I can make headway on putting together a plan for them.

Read. I am working on UbD, but have several others in line as well, including some on Habits of Mind. Need to do some personal reading too:)
SBG. I need to figure out how to make it work for AP, which isn't as skills based as Alg2. I also need to do some minor tweaks to Alg2.
WICR. I really want to work on incorporating Writing, Inquiry, Collaboration, and Reading in my math classes. I usually start off the year fairly well, but need to keep this going throughout the year.
Active Learning. I did this in AP and was mostly pleased with how it worked. I need to do some revisions in AP and increase this component in Alg2. I am in the process of going through and finding labs to add to my binder of ideas.
Warm-Ups. This year, I really struggled with Warmups and I really need to go back to them. In AP, I think I am going to do formative assessments using parts of AP problems. I'm not sure on Alg2 yet.
Cumulative Work. This has been a goal for several years, but it often goes by the way-side due to time crunch. I want to make a consious effort to have assessments and assignments that have previous knowledge involved.
Technology Integration. Supposedly we will have access to laptops in our new building, so I would like to beef up my class website to be more of a learning portal. I would like to integrate tools like Flubaroo (Thanks Fouss!), G-Docs, Wiki, etc. However, until I have full confirmation that this technology really is going to be available, this is kind of low on my priority list.

I'm sure there are more things to add. I've worked a bit at most of the ideas listed, but I don't have anything concrete yet, which is a bit frustrating. I have a jumble of ideas floating in my head and lots of dreams of what to do, but the nitty gritty details just haven't settled down yet. *sigh* I need July to go slower than June did :)

Active Learning and UbD

2011-06-29T17:17:00.000-07:00

Our bookclub has been reading Understanding by Design. The first few chapters really gut-punched me in several places and I marked next to them "BLOG POST!!". However, I was out-of-town at the AP Reading and a workshop, so it's taken a while to actually get my thoughts down on "paper".

Here's what got me in Chapter 1...

"How will we distinguish merely interesting learning from *effective* learning?" (pg 14)

"But many teachers begin with and remain focused on textbooks, favored lessons, and time-honored activities - the inputs - rather than deriving those means from what is implied in the desired results - the output. To put it in an odd way, too many teachers focus on the *teaching* and not the *learning*. They spend most of their time thinking, first, about what they will do, what materials they will use, and what they will ask students to do rather than first considering what the learner will need in order to accomplish the learning goals." (pg 15)

That still has the power to take my breath away. How many times have I been that teacher? How many times I have thought about what *I* will do without considering the end goal? One of the design tips suggested going up to a student mid-lesson and asking them "What are you doing? Why are you doing it? What is its purpose/connection?" and I want to do that more this year. I want to be more explicit in the WHY, so that at any point kids should know the purpose of the lesson/activity.

A few days later, we read and discussed chapter 2... again, I felt convicted:

"Doing something correctly, therefore, is not, by itself, evidence of understanding. It might have been an accident or done by rote." (pg 39)

"Students should not be able to solve the new problems and situations merely by remembering the solution to or the precise method of solving a similar problem in class It is not a new problem or situation if it is exactly like the others solved in class except that new quantities or symbols are used." (pg 41)

"We cannot *cover* concepts and expect them thereby to be understood; we have to *uncover* their value - the fact that concepts are the results of inquiry and argument." (pg 46)

I am guilty of coverage. Especially this year :( After 11 snow days, I was in a race against the clock to cover it all. I cringe to even use that word, but it's what I did :( I am also guilty of the new problem issue, although not as bad as I used to be. Early in my career, I was bad about giving a worksheet of 20 problems that were all alike, then giving a quiz with 2-3 more and declaring a success because the kids were able to repeat a process like a trained monkey. Thankfully, I have gotten away from that as much, but it still can creep up on me if I'm not watching.

The next few chapters in UbD weren't as exciting to me, but now we're on Chapter 5, which is about Essential Questions (EQ). I'm about halfway through the chapter at the moment and am eager to finish it and discuss it with my bookclub buddies. Last week, I was at an AVID workshop and one of the cornerstones of the AVID system is the use of Cornell Notes (CN). This year, they rolled out an updated version of their CN template that includes a space at the top for the EQ. I know a lot of districts around the country have adopted UbD as a planning tool and require their teachers to post the daily EQ on their boards at the beginning of the hour. I really like this new addition to the AVID CN template because it helps focus the students in their note-taking and their summary should be a direct link back to the EQ of the day.

As always, when I leave an AVID workshop, I feel challenged to do more WICR activities in my math classes. (WICR = Writing, Inquiry, Collaboration, Reading). I really feel that the use of WICR activities may help the issues mentioned above and aid in student understanding of concepts. Today, as I was working on some literacy strategies in math, I saw a link being tweeted about PBL, which lead me to another link about Student Centered Learning. (link here) The idea behind this article is that this teacher writes a step-by-step lesson plan and has his students teach themselves. That's not a very good explanation, so please go read his article for yourself. :) I do something very similar in my AP class, where students work through lab activities to gather data, learn vocab and concepts, and work collaboratively with their groups with me acting as a facilitator. I am eager to try something similar (on a smaller scale) with Algebra 2. All afternoon, I tried to visualize this classroom dynamic and the pros/cons of it. I'm not there yet, but so far, I think this could work for me.

It's been a busy summer and while I love going to workshops and learning new methods/ideas, sometimes I walk away feeling pretty down on myself. I don't know if it's something other teachers feel or if it's the perfectionist in me. I know I always have room for improvement and I think that quest for continuous improvement is a good thing. At the end of the day, all I want is to be able to answer "YES" to this question... "Have you done everything in your power to be the best teacher/person that you could be today?"

SBG - Reflections on SY 2010/11

2011-06-08T12:06:00.000-07:00

Last summer was a changing point for me as an educator. Fed up with my then method of grading, irritated at the "points-game" that my students played, and a lack of consistency in grading amongst teachers led me to reach out to the twitter/blog-o-sphere to build a better mouse trap. As a result, I became drunk on the Standards Based Grading (SBG) Kool-aid and I'm so glad I did.

If you go back and read the posts from last summer, you will see a lot of uncertainity in my posts as I tried to figure out how to best implement SBG in my classroom. Now that a full year has gone by, I want to provide some information on implementation, what worked for me and what didn't, and how I plan to modify it for next year.

Disclaimer #1: I only did SBG in my Algebra 2 classes and I'm still working out the details on how to implement in my AP classes for this upcoming year

Disclaimer #2: I am writing this post with the assumption you are already familiar with the basics of SBG. If not, I would definitely recommend Robert Marzano's Classroom Assessment and Grading that Works. A lot of my ideas are borrowed from his research.

How SBG works in my classroom...
At the beginning of a chapter, students are provided with an assignment sheet (Click HERE) which has a list of Learning Targets (LTs) and practice problems for each LT. In general, the LTs were from the lesson objectives of my textbook, but I did sometimes combine or even eliminate smaller objectives. For each LT, I broke down the traditional assignment from the textbook to 5 or so problems per LT, trying as hard as I could to provide a range of difficulty for each LT. I also tried to select odd problems so the students would have access to the answers in their textbook.

After 2-3 lessons (roughly 4-5 LTs), we would have a quiz over the material. Each LT had 3 problems, the first one was fairly straightforward and basic, the second problem was of average difficulty, and the third problem was of more advanced difficulty, often asking them to apply their knowledge in a new way or combining multiple skills. (Click HERE to see a sample quiz). Each LT was graded as a C (for Correct), P (for Partial), or I (for Incorrect). The C/P/I's were then combined for a rubric scale grade for each LT, with the more advanced problem's score weighing a bit heavier than the basic problem's score. I used a 4 point rubric, which I then converted to a 10 point "gradebook" grade due to limiations with my district gradebook.

In general:
CCC = 4 = 10/10 - You totally have this concept mastered!
CCP = 3.5 = 9/10 - You are almost there, just a minor error (usually a sign issue!)
CCI = 3 = 8.5/10 - You've got a pretty good grasp on the material
CPP = 2.5 = 8/10
CII = 2 = 7/10 - You have a basic understanding of the material
PPP = 1.5 = 6.5/10
PPI = 1 = 6/10 - There is a glimmer of knowledge of the concept
III = 0.5 = 5/10 - You have no clue, but you gave a valid effort
--- = 0 = 0/10 - You left it blank or no valid effort
**Note, not all combinations of C/P/I are listed... this is just a general guideline of what I did. Sometimes a CPP was a 3 depending on the strength of the Partial.

The night of a quiz, I went home and graded them, then recorded them in my gradebook on the 0-4 scale. I kept a paper gradebook (Blank copy HERE) because I wanted to keep track of student scores and reassessments, plus we don't have online access to our gradebooks at home :) Each square in the gradebook is large enough to write several scores, so it worked well for me. (See Sample GB HERE)Probably the most difficult thing for me was that I've always been a slow grader so I really didn't know how well I would do at getting quizzes back the next day. However, after a few quizzes, I was amazed at how speedy it was to grade, and so it wasn't the dreaded chore that it had been in the past.

The next day I handed the students back their quizzes. On the first few quizzes, I took the time to re-explain the system and what the rubric score meant. I really think that the time I took to model and explain the SBG system paid off in more ways than I could have expected. In the past, students had looked at their overall grade and then thrown their quiz away (or in their backpack, never to see the light of day again). However, with SBG, students really took the time to read the feedback, do an error analysis, check with a buddy to compare methods of solving, and rarely did I find a quiz in my trash can or recycle bin. In fact, most students kept their quizzes in their binders, in numerical order and even in May, they were able to produce quizzes from the fall semester when they were asked to. I had *never* had that happen in the past!

After the students received their quizzes, we discussed as a class what it meant to remediate and reassess. We talked about their score was a reflection of the mastery they had demonstrated, and if they felt their mastery had improved, then they needed to come in to demonstrate that improvement to me. On my podium was a weekly sign-up sheet (Click HERE for a blank copy) for students to schedule reassessments. I only allowed reassessments on three days of the week so I would have some off time for tutoring, meetings, etc. We also have a built in Advisory period on Thursdays that students could come in, but since I already had 20 Advisory students, I limited reassessments to the first 10 students that signed up.

When a student showed up for reassessment, they had to provide me proof of remediation. The idea behind this was that I didn't want them wasting my time or theirs on reassessment if they had not put any effort into mastering the material. Initially, I had planned that their remediation would be the practice problems from the assignment sheet, but as the year went on, that idea was modified to include an error analysis of their quiz, notes/problems worked with a tutor, etc. Overall, I was pleased with how students handled their remediation. As the year progressed, you could definitely see the students taking more control of their learning as they decided the amount and type of remediation they needed to do in order to master the material. We did have a few big rules regarding reassessment - the students could only do the LTs from a single quiz during a single session, and they could not received tutoring and reassess during the same session. These rules helped us keep our sanity and helped with the short-term memory issue :)

The Lessons We Learned
I was really shocked and amazed at how easy parent communication became with SBG. Since their grades were totally based on quizzes, there were no discussions on extra credit, turning things in late, etc. The gradebook was laid out in a very clear manner about their student's level of mastery per objective, so most parent questions were easily addressed.

At first, I was really dreading the actual grading, but I quickly adapted and overall I ended up with less to grade, yet able to provide my students with more specific and detailed feedback about what they knew or didn't know. I was also able to grade much faster, which let me have more time for planning interesting lessons.

In our original design, we had planned to continue with traditional chapter/unit tests, but this quickly went by the wayside. Part of this was a time issue, part of it was keeping all of the terminology straight, and part of it was just that traditional tests didn't seem to fit in well. We ended up going to just quizzes, which were every 5-8 class days and it worked out just fine in the end.

Definitely have a partner to try this with! If I had gone at it alone, I would have bombed out early just from being overwhelmed. However, I had spent most of last summer reading, researching, blogging, tweeting, discussing SBG before I ever stepped into my classroom. Having Neighbor Teacher there to try it with me, to help shoulder the responsibilities of writing quizzes, coming up with LTs and Practice Problems, asking advice while scoring a quiz was simply invaluable.

Changes for Next Year
One change I would definitely like to make for next year is an easier way for students to keep track of their scores. The assignment sheet has boxes for this, but I wasn't very good at insisting that students write their original score and their reassessment scores in those boxes. I need to look at some of the other blogs to see what they do for student recording.

I would also like to look into using tiered remediation. In other words, if you scored a 3.5, you only had a single minor error, so you don't need to do as much remediation as a person that scored a 0.5. I'm not sure that I could keep up with this paperwork, but I did have a few kids that did the minimum amount for remediation and then were shocked when their reassessment still wasn't very good!

Would I do it again?
Heck yeah! This was a long process but SO worthwhile. I've grown professionally through this process and I don't regret a minute of it. I just hope that this record of my journey helps someone out there as they start sipping the Kool-aid :)

In the Good Ole Summertime...

2011-06-03T17:14:00.000-07:00

It's official - summer is here! Today's highs were in the upper 90s and it's downright yucky outside!

Last Friday was our official last day of school, but I went back for a two day workshop this week. To say I'm conflicted would be an understatement... As I had understood it, the goal of the workshop was to work collaboratively on inquiry based lessons. However, most of my inquiry focused more around the "Huh??" realm. :) One definitely positive outcome was having conversations with the science teachers on how they use math in their classrooms and what I can do to support their program within my math classroom. I think the key challenge will be finding places in our math curriculum where the science fits naturally as to not create a "square peg/round hole" forced situation. It was pretty natural to find places where statistics fit in (duh!), but it was challenging to find areas for Alg2. The best we came up with was literal equations, parabolic motion, and graphing stories (distance vs time, etc).

After our workshop, several Alg 2 teachers got together to plan out the first part of next year. One of our frustrations is that we spend too much time on Alg 1 review, which then creates a bottleneck when we get to the actual Alg 2 material. Our goal was to try to condense the first few chapters of material while reviewing the Alg 1 material in the context of Alg 2. For example, instead of reviewing slope and writing equations of lines and such, we would do linear piecewise functions and have them write equations and find slopes of the various segments. I'm very excited about the changes and reorganization that we worked on and hope that it really helps with making connections for our students.

By the way, for those naysayers that think teachers have all this time off, today was my first day with nothing planned out and what did I do? I cleaned my office and worked on some activities for next year. I did get a nap in though! :)

Edited to add....
I asked my twitter PLN for any examples of how math can support what they are doing in science. For sake of my memory, I am cataloging the responses here...

macsmath - linear & quadratic eq's --> 3d position & prediction - I'll post what I do with it soon (hopefully)

jsb16 - I'd be happy if my students came in with Alg1 concepts solidly understood. Most of my sophomores can't solve F=ma for m.

torquedu - direct/inverse/inverse square/sqrt/logarithmic/exponential variation as common relationships among variables (not x &y)
- Not strictly Alg2/Precalc, but stus could always use practice with unit conversions, sci notation, non-integer numbers & graphing

fnoschese - equation of line, slope, area under graph (by hand, no calculus), solving equations, systems of equations, right tri trig, vectors.
- stop using x and y as variables eg if height is unknown use h not x.
- Truck starts 100 m north of school going south at 20 m/s. Car starts 40 m south of school going north at 35 m/s. When/where meet?
- Another is when they need to use slope eqn and area equation for a graph at the same time b/c of unknowns.
- for example: slope = (10 m/s/s) = v/t, area = (45 m) = (1/2)(v)(t) . What is v and t?
- You have a graph of velocity vs. time. Slope is acceleration (given). Area under graph is displacement (given). What's v and t?

I really appreciate the information given by the science teachers!! Thanks to you all!

Sweet summertime....

2011-05-28T07:03:00.000-07:00

Another year has come and gone and what a year it has been!

This past week...
Thursday we had a Professional Development day and Neighbor Teacher and I presented on our implementation of Standards Based Grading. We had a classroom full of teachers, mostly math, but a few from other subjects too. The presentation was supposed to be 1 hour, but many people stayed over for about 30 extra minutes to ask questions. Overall, I was really pleased with how well the presentation went and I am excited to see where next year takes us in terms of assessment. From the questions and comments, I think several of my colleagues will be trying SBG next year in their classrooms. After the presentation, I started packing my classroom as I will be moving to our new math and science facility next year. After 30 boxes, my cabinets are completely empty and I am headed back up there today to do my desk area.

Next week...
One of the future goals of the math and science departments is to create inquiry based collaborative projects and lessons. This next week, several of us will be gathering for a two day workshop to learn about this initiative. I'm eager to see what the outcome of the workshop will be.

Over the summer...
As always, it will be a busy summer. In addition to next weeks workshop, I have three more weeks of workshops planned, several items on my to-do list for next school year, unpacking my new classroom, and lots of naps :)

Things to keep... Things to change...

2011-05-13T11:20:00.001-07:00

Yesterday was my favorite day of the year. It was my annual "Trash Me" day. That is the day that I tell my kids to let me have it, tell me what they liked and dislked about the class, what needs to be kept, and what needs to be revised or even tossed completely. I tell them it's okay to tell me the honest truth and to feel free to tell me that I'm the worst teacher they've ever had and they wouldn't wish me on their worst enemy and I won't take it personally. For me, it's the most rewarding day of the year because the kids really are brutally honest and that's what allows me to grow from year to year. I start out by asking them to get out a piece of paper, then they free write for a few minutes. Then, I open it up to verbal discussion and write their comments on the board.

Here are some of their comments:
- Really liked working with a group/partner, but many felt they were too dependent on their partner, so they struggled when working independently. (My response: This year is the first year I've gone to almost a completely active classroom. As a result, the students worked on labs and activities almost daily to learn the material. While I did appreciate the reduced dependence on me as the teacher, I
did not anticipate the increased dependence on their groupmates.)

- Students felt the Gallery Walk activity was very successful. It forced them to read over the previous groups work and look for error and to see different ways that other students did the steps. (My response: I'm glad they felt this was useful, I had never used it before and now I will try to find ways to use it more often)

- Students appreciated that homework was only required for remediation/reassessments. The majority felt that we worked so hard in class (remember, they are the ones working, I don't lecture much at all), so additional homework they felt was unnecessary for most students. However, they did recognize that sometimes they needed to work more on a concept in order to really get it. (My response: I totally agreed with them here)

- One suggestion they had was to do more FR questions at a time. We do a weekly Free Response question, but many of them requested a monthly/quarterly Free Response practice that was multiple FRs at a time over mixed topics to help them prepare on pacing and seeing multiple topics at a time. (My response: I think this is a great suggestion and I will definitely implement it for next year)

Overall, I really appreciated their honest feedback and I will admit that this is the first year that I've had more positive comments than negative comments. I always learn so much from their suggestions and feel that this is one of the best growth opportunities for me from year to year. Now that the AP exam is said and done, I love reflecting on my year and planning for next year :)

Random Thoughts...

2011-05-10T18:33:00.000-07:00

Tomorrow afternoon is the AP exam... I've done what I can do, now it's up to the kiddos.

Now the race to the end begins... Graduations, assemblies, banquets, final exams, professional development, packing up.... Seems like every day on my calendar has something written.

I've started my to-do list for the summer and it keeps growing. Sometimes I look at it and think "Dang, I really did a horrible job this year"... I know that's not true, but it's so easy to get overwhelmed by all of the things I would like to improve upon. I need to trim and edit the list to a manageable level...

Two more weeks....

Looking Back... Looking Forward....

2011-04-23T14:26:00.000-07:00

It's that time of year where I start reflecting on the past and looking toward the future. We now have one month left of school and a lot to get done in that month. The Algebra 2 End of Course exam is just days away and the AP exam is coming in a few short weeks. The month of April has just flown by and here we are at the end of it!!

Yesterday I got to see my new classroom for the first time. My district is building a new math and science facility and in just a few short months, I will be moving in. It is bittersweet for me - I'm excited to have the amenities that come with the new facility, but very sad to leave my current hall-mates that have helped me through thick and thin. Some of the perks of the new room - a thermostat that *I* can control, lights that turn on automatically when you enter the room, and light controls both by the door and by the teacher station, which will be great for videos, etc, lots of white board space and the ever important storage.

As I look back on this year, here's my list of things that I'm really excited about:

Standards Based Grading really worked well for me in Algebra 2. The kids really took ownership of their grades and realized that the important thing was that they learned the material. I am extremely proud of how well my kids adapted and how much they matured over the year.
Converting AP to a completely active classroom. I really couldn't tell you the last time I lectured in AP. Instead, I set it up as a lab style classroom where the kids worked daily in groups, really emphasizing that "productive struggle" we keep hearing about.
My online PLC via Twitter - I learn so much from these people! From the online book clubs to just having a network of like-minded educators, this has been one of my most rewarding professional activities from the year.
Vertical Team - several of my colleagues and I have been working this semester on vocabulary alignment, Pre-AP ideas, and opening the lines of communication, all of which were sorely needed.
Overall, because of the things listed above, this was my best year ever!!

Things to think about for next year...

Flipping my classroom - making videos to teach, review and refresh concepts from earlier in the year
Standards Based Grading for my AP classes
Determining which labs were most effective for AP and which need to be revised
Integration of articles into my AP classes
More technology - in the new facility, we are supposed to have laptop carts in our classrooms. If so, I would like to work more with google forms, wikis, blogs, etc to really integrate technology
Pre-AP integration - Assuming that I am still teaching Algebra 2 (we've not gotten our schedules yet), I would like to work on more Pre-AP activities.

It's going to be a very busy summer..

Developing Understanding in Algebra and Geometry

2011-03-26T09:17:00.000-07:00

Last week, my district brought in a Pre-AP math consultant to work with us on Pre-AP Strategies. Initally, most of us were not pleased with having to miss a day of school to attend a PD day, mainly because we had missed 2 weeks of school in February due to a blizzard and we have end of course exams coming in mid April, so a lost instructional day was not high on our to-do list. However, we were also very grateful that the district was trying to bring in PD that would be applicable and ready to implement. In a nutshell, we had a great day :) Here are some tidbits of knowledge that I took from it...

General comments
"You (the student) will feel uncomfortable in this room! Your brain will hurt daily!"

The "Rule of 4" should be on every assessment and potentially every problem.

Make the kids communicate in complete mathematical sentences. Communication helps ALL kids - the answer alone does not. With just the answer, the struggling kid still doesn't know what to do or where to start.

Students should be asked to read, interpret, communicate, draw, label, compute, and explain/justify on a regular basis.

We as teachers should not have to put "Show all work" on every test - this should be an implied directive that they do no matter what.

More Specific Ideas
One of the key components of the workshop was the focus on how to communicate mathematically both your process and your product. One of the activities she used came from the Math Connections book by Dale Seymour. She used the "What are you likely to be asked" activity, but in the Amazon link, you can see an example of the "How do you know" activity. I can really see both of these as great warmup/journal prompts or even as exit slips.

Another idea she had was based on the game "Would you rather?" I think it would be neat to sit down and brainstorm a bunch of these for various courses. This again could be a neat journal activity.

She also refered us to the Algebra Lab website and we looked at the All Tied Up in Knots problem, which explores a system of equations using two ropes, tying knots in each of them and measuring their length. This could be a great pre-ap Algebra problem as you could go into what the y-intercept and slope really mean, which is a vital skill in AP Statistics. I'm eager to go through the other activities on that site to see what else I could use in my classes.

We also explored some neat geometry problems such as constructing a tangram using compass/straightedge, a fun manipulative proof the Pythagorean Theorem, 3D solid constructions using pipecleaner pieces and coffee straws, and peeling an orange to discover that the surface area of a sphere is 4(pi)r^2.

All in all, it was a fun and productive day that really allowed us to get some creative juices flowing.

Mastery of Objectives

2011-03-19T15:50:00.000-07:00

So during a discussion on twitter today, @misscalcul8 and I were discussing the number of objectives taught per week. On average, in Algebra 2, I would say I cover 3-4 objectives. Her question, and a very valid one was this:

So how do you teach to mastery in one day of experience with a LT? I don't meant that critically.

Now that response is way over 140 characters, so I told her I would blog my answer :)

In short, the answer is "You don't." Mastery is not a one-day process - it is a long term process that differs for every child. You have to continue spiraling the curriculum so that over time, mastery is obtaining. Some of you may have seen the "forgetting curve"...

Here's how the forgetting curve works for me...
On the first day of an objective, I teach, they take notes, do problems, etc like normal. Then the next day, I give a "Checkpoint" - this is an ungraded formative assessment so I can provide written feedback and correct errors. On day 3, they get the checkpoint back, look over it, read my notes. (Note: during days 2 and 3, I am teaching new, but related objectives that I try to continue tying into each other). A few days later, there is some kind of cumulative activity to see how objectives work together, review multiple objectives, etc. There are also Jing videos that I have created and put on the class website that they are supposed to refer to if they need additional instruction. About once a week, there is a SBG quiz that covers that week's objectives. Again, lots of written feedback if needed. Over the next few weeks they are working on those objectives using self-check materials, the Jing videos, tutoring, etc so they can reassess. (In order to reassess, they must provide evidence that they have worked on mastering the objective)

In a nutshell -
From start to finish, the student has seen and worked with the objective many many many times, so that they are constantly bringing it to the forefront of their mind, spiraling the material so that they will achieve mastery.

Definitely longer than 140 characters :)

Spring Break :)

2011-03-15T13:42:00.000-07:00

I have been meaning to post for a few days, but I'm struggling with forming coherent thoughts right now... This post will be somewhat of a rambling one, so bear with me...

At school, some of the teachers have decided to get together for lunch once a week in order to discuss vertical alignment. This has caused me to pull out old Pre-AP materials from workshops, do some research online, and even do a few calculus problems. What I have learned is that at the time I took calculus in high school and college, I really was clueless about what was going on. It makes so much more sense now that I've taught geometry and algebra 2 and have the conceptual maturity to get it!

As an extension of that, I've really been feeling a need to do a better job in Algebra 2, specifically with making connections. So I am going to ~~steal~~ borrow from the wisdom of my amazing blogger and twitter friends to rework the exponential/logarithm chapter with more active learning techniques. That was part of my goal today and I have 1 lesson done out of 8.. woot! :)

While I definitely enjoy having a break and being able to sleep in, I really am not a fan of this time of the school year. For some reason, each year in March and April, I look back over the year and thing, gosh, I did a cruddy job :( Then I start my to-do list of things to do better next year and the cycle repeats itself....

I need a nap...

Gallery Walk - Stat Style

2011-02-15T19:42:00.000-08:00

Remember that blizzard that hit the midwest two weeks ago today? Yeah, well, yesterday (Feb 14th) was the first day I had seen my students since Jan 31st. In AP, time is a very precious thing because we have a lot to cover and every day is really special to us. Thankfully I was a bit ahead before the storm AND the AP exam was moved to the 2nd week of testing this year, so I'm not frantic - yet! I was in the middle of teaching confidence intervals for proportions when the storm hit and I really feared that the cobwebs would take awhile to clear in order to get us back on track. Yesterday I did the half sheet review and it went very smoothly. The kiddos settled back into the routine like no time had passed at all! Since for each halfsheet, they have to come up for me to check it, I was able to clarify thinking and remind them of details quickly and more effectively than I could have through lecture. However, I knew I needed more practice on confidence intervals before the chapter quiz, and then a brainstorm hit - GALLERY WALK! :)

The idea behind a Gallery Walk is pretty simple and I had used it before in workshops, but never with my students. I didn't know how well it would work at all, but I really liked it! Last night, I took a worksheet with 7 confidence interval problems and printed it. Today, I cut those problems apart and posted the problem and a piece of chart paper around my room. When the students got to class, they worked on their warmup in their groups while I went around and gave each group a different colored marker. Then we got started. Each group went to a piece of chart paper and read the prompt. Then as a group, they decided what the parameter of interest was and wrote that down. When all of the groups were done, we rotated clockwise to the next chart paper station. The group then read the new prompt and the previous group's work. With a new group member as the writer, they corrected the previous group's work and then continued the problem by checking the conditions needed for a confidence interval. Again, when all groups were done, we rotated clockwise again. Repeat with a new group member as the writer, read the prompt, check the two previous groups' work, then continue the problem with the name of the procedure and the calculations of the interval. Again, when done, rotate to new station, marker goes to a new writer, read the prompt, correct the previous groups' work, and write a conclusion for the problem. Finally, the writing is all done. They rotate once more to read and check the previous work. Now comes the self-checking part. Each group rotates back through the posters they had written on to see what errors had been caught by someone else. Here is a completed poster:

So how did it go? I think today's activity was a success. For the most part, the kids did really well working together and moving about. When I read over their work, rarely was there an error, so I was glad to see that. I have pretty much taught this chapter with no direct instruction, so I am eager to see how they do on Thursday's quiz. Overall, I would deem this a success and will try it again when we do hypothesis testing... which reminds me, I need more chart paper :)

Til next time.... :)

Snowmaggedon

2011-02-10T17:17:00.000-08:00

Yeah, so tomorrow is the 9th straight snow day we've had. The last time I saw my students was January 31st. Crazy, huh?

So during my second Winter Break, I wasn't nearly as productive as I should have been. Seems like each day was in limbo, waiting on the phone call that decided my fate for another day. However, since I've not seen my students in 2 weeks, that does create some issues when deciding what the heck to do with them after an unexpected and record-breaking blizzard and it's aftermath.

In AP Statistics, I had just introduced confidence intervals for proportions a few days prior to us being out. Based on an idea that I got a few years ago from an AP workshop, I created a lab where my students got the "big picture idea" of a confidence interval based on tossing around inexpensive inflatable globes with the task of predicting the true proportion of water on the Earth's surface. I love lab activities that require the kids to read, question, and discuss the big ideas without any direct instruction from me. At the end of the day, they had a pretty decent idea of the purpose of a confidence interval and the basic idea of how it is related to the Normal model. The next day (Friday) I did some direct instruction over the Margin of Error (MoE) and the more nitty-gritty details of the process required for a confidence interval. However during the weekend, the forecast started getting gloomy and I knew direct instruction would not work for Monday. Instead, I created another lab where the students were rolling Pass the Pigs pig dice to create confidence intervals for Razorback, Trotter, Sider, etc. This time, the lab was more detail oriented than the globe lab, walking them through a complete write-up of a Confidence Interval for Proportions. At the end of the hour, we quickly reviewed and that was the last time I saw them.

So now, here I am, thinking of the 2 weeks that I lost and trying to figure out how to get them back on track. Last weekend, I created a "half-sheet" activity to review what we had already covered about Confidence Intervals as well as introduce the idea of finding a sample size for a given MoE. I have done the "half-sheets" before and my students *LOVE* them. When they come to class, they sit with their collaborative groups and each group gets a copy of Card #1. As a group, they work through it, discuss it, make sure everyone is on board, then they bring it up to me to check. If it's correct, I OK it, then hand them Card #2. If it's not correct, I point out errors in thinking, etc and they go back to the group to find their errors. This continues until the end of class. Pretty much, any worksheet can be done as "half-sheets", but for some reason, they ASK to do half-sheets! Anyway, here's the confidence interval for proportions half-sheets in case you want them :)

For Algebra 2, Partner Teacher and I decided to review and quiz them on Monday/Tuesday over function operations, compositions, and inverses before moving on to the Radicals unit. I had found this neat "Ghosts in the Graveyard" activity a while back but hadn't had a chance to use it yet. Well, of course Monday is Valentine's Day AND we're going to review, so why not do Math Conversation Hearts? :) I created 8 heart-shaped cards with review problems that I will copy onto red and pink cardstock and laminate. Instead of Graveyards, I'm leaning toward possibly letting them choose some of the big Conversation Heart candies (or maybe just cutouts?) when they get their problem set correct, then at the end of the hour, determine which color is worth how many points. The prize will (of course) be yummy Valentine's candies!

Thankfully, it looks like we will be going back on Monday. Next week's highs are near 70, which will be sandal weather compared to this morning's -12!! To help make up the days that we missed, it definitely looks like I will be working on "flipping" my classes earlier than I originally expected! I'm ready to be back into my routine, although I'm pretty sure I have forgotten how to set my alarm.... :)

I heart my iPhone

2011-02-04T17:52:00.000-08:00

About a year and a half ago, our phone contracts were up for renewal and hubby had been wanting an iPhone. A lot of my students had them, but I was not impressed, I couldn't figure out why anyone would want to spend that much money on a phone, plus an outrageous monthly fee for the data plan. So hubs ended up getting one while I got a "texting" phone that I thought totally fit my needs. About 6 months later, I finally saw the need for one as my students were studying for final exams and asked to take a picture of the review answer key so they would have it at home. *Shrug*, sure why not! One student offered to post the pictures on his facebook page and the kids were happily reviewing, but it got me to thinking about the uses of an iPhone in the classroom. A few days later, after stalking Craigslist for an affordable iPhone, I found a good deal and bought myself one. Now, less than a year later, I can't imagine what I would do without it!

For example, in Algebra 2, I use it as a scanner, to take pictures of files that I want to post on the class website (answer keys, etc), or when I want to point out specific instructions on a paper. When we were solving polynomial functions, I did a matching jigsaw like puzzle, but I knew if I just verbally told them that most of the expressions were repeated as equations, they would be clueless, so I snapped a picture, hooked up phone to my computer and projected the following onto the Promethean to show the kids what I was referring to.

I've also used it as a scanner in AP Stat, but I also like it for snapping pictures of students doing class activities or to embed into a Jing video later on as a remediation tool. I took pictures as we explored what happens when we flip a penny 10 times, recording the proportion of heads versus flipping the penny 20 times. Now these pictures will be put into a screencast for review of sampling distributions of proportions. (Note: I'm also fond of Post-It pad paper and Dollar Tree smiley face stickers when I need to make graphs in Stat). I didn't take a picture of all of the writing I did afterwards - we talked about the difference between p and p-hat, and talked about the overall Normal model pattern that would emerge if we were to continue flipping the penny and recording p-hats

(Sorry for the sideways graph....)

In addition to using my iPhone for about every avenue of my life, I sent my AVID kids on a snow day scavenger hunt to find cool education apps that they could use to help them study and/or get organized. Since I haven't seen them since I gave them the assignment, I'll have to update you next week on what they found :)

I know there has to be more awesome ways to harness the power of my little mobile computer, how do you use it in the classroom?

Snow Week....

2011-02-04T17:27:00.000-08:00

So, in case you didn't hear, the nation got pounded by a massive storm system this week. In my neck of the woods, where a 3-4" snow is considered pretty big and closes us down for a couple of days, we got a whooping 21 inches! Needless to say, that set a few records, then we got another 3.5 inches today, with more forecast for Sunday *sigh*. The system came in overnight on Monday and hours before any snowflake even hit the ground, the schools were cancelling Tuesday's classes. Ultimately, we ended up cancelling the entire week due to the horrible road conditions. Tomorrow is the first day it is supposed to get above freezing, so I'm hoping for some melt as I go out to clear my driveway.

Anyway, so how did I use my snow days you ask? The first day or two was a total waste of course, spent the day gawking at the snow drifts and watching the news coverage while lounging under a warm blanket. But by the end of day 2, I started getting antsy, so I combed through blog after blog after blog stealing all of the good Algebra 2 ideas that I could find and organizing them by chapter of my textbook. I read through all of the Math Teachers at Play blog carnivals and brainstorming the various review ideas/structures and how I could increase student engagement in Algebra 2. There are some really awesome ideas out there, but it takes hours to comb through all of those sites and find the good ones.

A few weeks ago, I stumbled upon a new math teacher blog (because she was awesome enough to post a comment here, or I would have never found her!) and totally stole this neat Math Stations activity. (Click HERE to read her instructions). We happened to have a short day a few days after I found her blog, in which I would only see one of my Algebra 2 classes, so I whipped up a quick review of the material we had been learning. I printed it double sided, but I did do the answers by hand because I didn't want to type that much :) I gave the kids 4 minutes per card and overall I think it worked REALLY well. Here is the file:

Now to watch the news again... they are forecasting more snow in my future :(

Function Dice

2011-01-20T15:40:00.000-08:00

Today was a snow day (yay!), but we were supposed to teach function operations in Algebra 2. I had given a quiz yesterday and while they were quizzing, I had a brainstorm - function dice!!!

So today during my snow day, I found some foam dice in my closet (thanks @Fouss!) and using tiny post-its from Walgreen's Back to School sale, I made an f(x) and a g(x) dice set :)

By rolling the two dice, we have a large set of practice problems and example problems for tomorrow's lesson :)

Now I need to figure out an tetrahedral die for the four functions :)

(Although I wouldn't be opposed to another snow day either!)

Effective Integration of Technology

2010-12-28T13:13:00.000-08:00

I try to be a pretty progressive teacher. I would like to think that most days I succeed at the attempt, but one area that I am lacking is in effective use of technology. Now, if you were to ask others, they might say that I'm one of the most tech-geek teachers they know, but I know the truth - that technology for technology's sake is not effective. I use my projector system every day, I can do online research with the best of them, but I want to explore technology that truly gets the job done, not just technology that looks pretty. It reminds me of a passage in Robyn Jackson's "Never Work Harder Than Your Students", which says something to the effect of needing to evaluate every lesson and if it doesn't get the job done, get rid of it - even if it's your favorite lesson, if it doesn't achieve the goal, it's not worth it.

Enter in my good friend @approx_normal - a few weeks ago she sends me a link to this video and it really gets my thought process going...

The basic idea is to flip your classroom - send your "lecture" home as homework (via podcast or CD) and then in class, do more exploration, assignments, activities, and labs. I LOVE the idea!! Ever since that day, I've been trying to figure out how to implement this for next year. How I could use Jing videos, etc to create an online virtual "textbook" for my students to watch and take notes.

Then, fresh on the heels of this video was a twitter discussion with @jasonchri, another AP Stat teacher. He uses technology on a daily basis, and I've been following his tweets with great delight as he is also trying SBG in Stat this year. He has his class set up so that reassessments aren't always formal reassessments, they could be updating the class wiki, working on an applet, etc. He also utilizes Google Docs for quizzes, feedback, data collection, etc. I would LOVE to be a fly on the wall in his classroom for a few days! Browsing around his website got me to thinking further - Could I integrate this idea and the idea from above? If so, what an awesome way to turn the learning over to my students!

I know it's crazy to be thinking about summer projects in the dead of winter - but here's where my PLN comes in... Tell me about technology use in your classroom. What technology tools do you use? How do you use them effectively? How do you decide a tool isn't for you?

Thanks in advance!!

Halfway there!

2010-12-22T09:32:00.000-08:00

First semester is over :)

It's been a few months since I've blogged, but life has been overwhelming at times! Between new textbooks, new grading system, teaching at both HS and uni, and some personal stuff, I am so grateful for the downtime of winter break. Here's a quick recap of the semester...

SBG
If you go back, you will notice that most of my summer posts were about my foray into Standards Based Grading. This has been the biggest change for me professionally and I am very pleased with the results so far. On their semester final, I felt most student scores accurately reflected their progress through the semester, so for that I was pleased. However, I did still have quite a few kids up to the last reassessment day clamoring for the points they needed to get the highest grade they could going into the final. I'm okay with that though because instead of asking for extra credit, etc, the kids really had to show some demonstration of mastery for that grade to raise.

Technology
For all of the good that I had with SBG, Technology was the bane of my existence this semester. When I set up my room in August, my projector was not working and it took 15 weeks for them to get it fixed. Now I know there is a lot of red tape, etc, but seriously?!?! I could have gone to Office Depot and PURCHASED a projector and had it installed within days!! This meant that I was 100% crippled in terms of videos, applets, 2.0 tools like Jing, etc. The day the new projector was slated to be installed, we had a 2 hour lock-down that started 5 minutes before school was to be released - UGH!!! Once I did get my projector fixed though, I was like a kid in a candy store - I was giddy with excitement :) On another technology grumble, last year, I had ordered 15 laptops for my department - they have YET to be delivered.. WTH???

The Immediate Future
This next semester is shaping up to be just as busy as the fall. Partner Teacher and I have been asked to present at our staff PD day about SBG, a prospect that both excites me and makes me nervous. I look forward to implementing more technology this semester, with Jing, classroom wiki, etc.

The More Distant Future
While this year has been (mostly) amazing, I am always looking for improvement. Next school year will bring a mix of good and bad and I'm already nervous about it. I will be moving over to a new classroom in a brand new buildling, with the goal of math and science collaboration/integration. Part of me is excited about exploring new methods of reaching my kids and exploring collaborative ventures with the science department, but a huge chunk of me is sad to be leaving the building that has been my home for over a decade, friends that are like family, and current collaborative partnerships. Our close-knit department will be divided and that scares me to no end.

As with all semesters, I leave this one with mixed feelings. I am pleased with the improvements I've made, but I am always looking for ways to make things even better.

For now, though, it's time to work on my Christmas list :) I wish all of you a very happy holiday break!!

I heart Fall Break! :)

2010-10-24T13:04:00.000-07:00

Whoever decided that teachers and students needed a break in October should be declared a Saint! I love teaching, but after a while, you need some down-time to relax, catch up on sleep, veg on the couch, clean your house, etc. We had parent/teacher conferences on Tuesday night and Wednesday morning and then had the rest of the week free - yay!!! Of course, as with every break, I started the week with such great plans to catch up, etc and instead it turned into several days of relaxation and in general, not being very productive at all!

Wednesday after conferences, Partner Teacher and I went to one of the local watering holes and spent the afternoon mapping out the rest of the semester. What a great feeling to know that we have a plan! We've had a lot of success this year, but also some set-backs, specifically in terms of long-term retention. A great example of this was this past week's test :(

Last week, when both of us were gone on Friday, we had assigned this "Partner Problems" Worksheet. The idea was that students could work with a partner and check their answers, but they had to work independently on each problem since the problems themselves are different. On Monday, they had additional time to study in class and then they took a cumulative 9-weeks test on Tuesday. Overall, we were NOT pleased with the scores! Some students did well, some not so well, so both Partner Teacher and I were pretty bummed. After grading the tests, we both realize that we have to work on the retention factor of skills.

Tomorrow, students will be getting a couple of new papers to add to their binders. First will be a test analysis sheet, where they will go through their test, see what skills they really need to work on and see if there's a pattern in their weaknesses. Students will be able to come in to make test-corrections for partial credit, but as always they will need to show evidence of remediation first. This idea came from this week's chapter of #sbarbook on how to give feedback to students. Sadly, I wish I had caught these issues before hand, but I knew that some major issues would be absolute value and parallel/perpendicular lines and tried to warn them ahead of time :( Sigh!

Next, to address the issue of retention, we've decided that the quizzes will have a previous knowledge section that will contain one previous LT skill. We will not tell the students which skill it is, but plan to tell them which quiz it was originally from. This previous knowledge skill will start everyone everyone with a fresh slate for that skill and will be able to be remediated/reassessed like any other skill. I'm still struggling with how to keep up with this in my paper gradebook, but I'm hoping to figure it out soon :)

I would love to hear your ideas on how to increase long-term retention and how you give students feedback on their weaknesses on a test.

Taking a Me Day :)

2010-10-15T11:09:00.000-07:00

For the first time in my 13-year career, I took a personal day to sleep in, clean house, read, and relax. It has been simply amazing :) At the moment, I'm taking a break from reading Monday's chapter in #sbarbook - "Never Work Harder Than Your Students" by Robyn Jackson. The section I just finished was about "Demystify the Process" in terms of clearing up student confusion and anticipating problems before they start. I had to take a break to jot down a few ideas and process it myself.

This chapter's principle is about providing proper support to students BEFORE they fail instead of waiting until AFTER they fail to provide remediation. One of the keys in providing this support is to anticipate student errors, misconceptions, and confusing topics/instructions. In the section I just finished it says we often assume students know how to do things like study, read a textbook, etc, but that we rarely take the time to teach them how to do these things, to break down the process into clear, concrete terms. This got me to thinking about how this same principle applies to teaching. (While there are many examples I could come up with, I will pick on a current issue in many districts.) A common buzzword around here is "using data to drive instruction", and the upper admin that expects this to happen just assumes that we know how to do it, but has never provided explicit, clear, concrete instructions on what/how they expect us to do this. While I have a vague idea of what they mean, no instruction has been provided to allow me to clearly understand their expectations.

Another point that is made in this section is that we rarely sit down with our students and explain the "why" of doing something. Students have become adept at many academic processes, such as writing a lab report, etc, but how many of them really get the "why" of the lab report? Do they really understand what they are doing, why they are being asked to do it, and how it can ultimately help their learning process? Again, I related this to being a teacher. Teachers are often given top-down directives to do this program or to implement this process, and they do it because for the most part, teachers are rule-followers. But how many of us really understand the "why" of these programs and processes? Are we provided the information that really gets us on board with how these programs can help our students and ultimately help us become a better teacher? I recently commented to Partner Teacher that while we had experienced a lot of good things from implementing SBG, a key part of it was that it was "grass-roots". We took the time to do the research, read books/blogs, really understand the "why" of how it would help us and our students. If SBG had been a top-down mandate without the "why" provided by the research, would we be experiencing this success or would it be yet another program that we felt forced to implement?

Finally, this section also brings up the "Yes, but...." I have to admit, I really like this feature of the book. You can tell that the author truly spent time trying to figure out the common comebacks and excuses and gives her best shot at counteracting them. This "Yes, but.." asks if being so explicit, hand-holding our kiddos through the process, explaining every nuance of an assignment, is that the equivalent of "dumbing down our curriculum"? Her response is a great one - that being concrete as you introduce a process allows students better understanding and provides the foundation for abstract thought as they progress through the material. In my classes, both at the high school and at the university, I often start a chapter or lesson with a hands-on lab activity that walks the students through the thought process of that objective. Then as they gain more competence, I ease off the step-by-step instructions and provide them opportunities to stretch their brain. This concrete to abstract process provides them the support to be independent learners.

Now off to finish the chapter and take a nap :)

Just sit right back and you'll hear a tale....

2010-10-07T17:37:00.000-07:00

It's been a while since I posted and each day I think "ya know, I should really post about how things are going", but then I get busy grading or planning or I'm just not feeling it for whatever reason and it gets pushed off my radar for another day...

But today it feels right... Two years ago today, my step-daddy passed away and this was one of the places I turned to share his story. That was probably the start of my realization that I actually had a few readers out in the blog-o-sphere and someone really cared to read my random posts. While I still miss him greatly and always look for him when I go to my momma's house, that's not the tale I came here to share today...

Today's tale is about my school year so far. I am having probably the best professional year of my career and that simply feels amazing. But then, I walk outside of my classroom and the weight of the demands from the outside world crushes me. So instead, I stay within my little comfort zone that is my room and Partner Teacher's room and figure I'll stay as under the radar as much as I can :)

After school today, Partner Teacher makes a comment that we need to start making a list of the good and the bad of this year, so here goes...

At first, I was concerned with the time it seemed to take to grade the SBG quizzes, but now that I have my system down, I *heart* that I grade about once a week and have more free time for planning cool lessons.
I adore how easy SBG makes parent contact. When a parent emails to ask what Junior needs to work on, it's so simple to put the responsibility back on Junior's shoulders, where it needs to be.
My students and parents like that they know detailed information about where they are.
It only takes a kid one reassessment to really see the benefit of coming in. Last week, we had a quiz on transformations and 2-variable inequalties. One young man really struggled and did rather poorly on it, he asked to stay after on Tuesday, we worked for about 20 minutes, I sent him home with some practice problems and today he asked to reassess. Each of those objectives he raised from 0.5 to a 3 or a 4 - HOORAY!!!
A system that seemed very strange to the kids just two months ago, now seems totally normal and they wish other teachers used this method.
While I can easily see how SBG works in a process oriented class like Alg2, I struggle with how to implement it in an application class like Stat. I still have no idea where to even start to set up SBG in there.
I do worry about concept retention, but I think that was an issue in the traditional system as well. With the new 9 weeks, we are going to have a "Previous Knowledge" standard that is from a previous assessment - haven't worked out all the details yet, but we'll get there :)
I'm constantly amazed at how much my kids are willing do, even when there's not a grade attached to it. Today we did the graphing inequalities worksheet from Dan Greene and they loved it!
Even with all of the great things happening, it's been an insanely busy year. New textbooks, 3 preps, wrapping my head around SBG, night class, all combines to make me feel absolutely exhausted on a daily basis.
I also worry about their ability to work with more than a couple of concepts and/or their ability to work when the problems are all mixed together and not labeled with their Learning Target ID. I'm still working on that one....

Overall, I do have to declare our foray into SBG a tentative success. I really appreciate the support that I've gotten both on this blog and via twitter as we've gone through this journey. I <3 my PLN :)

I heart Activities!

2010-09-02T18:33:00.000-07:00

This year has already had some ups and downs, but I'm enjoying it so far. We have new textbooks, which is always a challenge, but since this is my 2nd year in Algebra 2, I'm feeling more confident in my ability to try new things.

Last week, we taught two lessons. One was on domain and range and whether something was a function. Sunday night before I was to teach it, I got a brainstorm of an activity and immediately messaged Neighbor Teacher about the idea. I love working with Neighbor Teacher because she is always willing to try my harebrained ideas :) We often tease that if we could just meld our minds into one, we'd be unstoppable! Anyway, we got together after school on Monday to brainstorm and I had a stash of Graph Paper index cards. We ended up making 6 sets of domain/range cards for us to use in our classes the next day. For each card, the kids had to figure out the domain, the range, and whether it was a function. It went very well! Here's a picture of the cards:

The next lesson was about standard form and x/y intercepts. Years ago, we used to teach an activity based algebra lab class, so we started digging through those card games, etc and low and behold, we had a matching game for standard form, graphs, and intercepts. So again, we put the kids in groups and had them match them up. It's great to hear the kids talking math!!!

This week was our first test in Algebra 2. All of the concepts we had quizzed on were on the test. The kids had their quizzes back, had opportunties to reassess, etc. I was determined NOT to do a test review worksheet because I want the kids to learn how to study based on their personal weaknesses, not just regurgitate a test review. I encouraged them to make a practice test from the level 2 questions on their quizzes. I told them to work the homework problems from their weak areas, etc. Again, Neighbor Teacher and I brainstormed how to review and she came up with the idea of practice cards per learning target. So last weekend, I made 3 cards per Learning Target, each with 3 questions on it. I made 2 complete sets of these cards and the kids really seemed to like the targeted review. See a sample of the cards here:

Of course, the title of this blog is "Teaching Statistics", so I suppose I should share an activity from there too :) This next week, we will be covering Contingency Tables and Marginal/Conditional Distributions. I got yet another brainstorm last week while driving home and when I got home, I just had to type it up :) I am really trying to reduce my "talking time" more and more each year and make things as self-guided as I can. A friend of mine field tested it today, but I haven't heard yet how it went, so use with caution :) It can't be that bad - it's an M&M Lab for goodness sake! heheh So click here for the activity :)

We have staff development tomorrow then off for a mini-vacay with the fam - I'm hoping to have more brainstorms and more to share with you when I get back! Until then, have a happy and safe holiday weekend!

SBG: The Actual Implementation

2010-08-28T08:51:00.000-07:00

For those of you who have read back a few posts, you know that my summer was spent researching Standards Based Grading (SBG). After lots of thought-provoking discussions both here and via my Twitter PLN, I kept creeping closer and closer to the final plan that I would actually implement once students arrived.

On the first day of school, I avoided any serious talk of syllabi, grading, etc, and instead chose to do some math. In Algebra, this was a "Graphing Stories" activity, while in Statistics, we looked at the court case of Kristen Gilbert, an "Angel of Death" nurse. The next day, though, it was time to get to the district required stuff - syllabus, pre-test, handing out textbooks, etc. In Algebra 2, I discussed SBG, but they really didn't get it much then. I told the Alg2 kiddos that we would have a quiz on Monday and it was material they would be held accountable for, even though I did not teach it. I handed each student an Assignment Sheet that listed Chapter 1's objectives and practice problems for each objective. I told them the quiz on Monday would cover Lessons 1.1-1.3 (a total of 5 objectives), so I would suggest they look over those practice problems over the weekend for those objectives.

The, Monday came... I gave my Alg2 classes a quiz over 1.1-1.3 and also went into more detail on how SBG worked. Each objective had it's own section on the quiz and had 3 problems of varying degrees of difficulty. I explained that if there was a section they struggled on, they could remediate and reassess. That night was a shock to my system though! It took me 5 hours to grade 58 quizzes!!! I went through first and marked all of the perfectly correct problems with a C and then then back through the others with more detail. It was a time consuming process to say the least! One thing I discovered was that either their arithmetic skills are lacking or they are very careless, because there were a LOT of minor errors! On Tuesday, I handed back the quizzes and explained to the students what the scale (0-4) meant and how it would show up on the online gradebook. Pretty much, here's an idea of how the scale works:

4 = 100% correct on all three questions = 10/10 in GB
3.5 = all three correct, but with single minor error = 9/10 in GB
3 = two questions correct, or all three w/ multiple minor errors = 8.5/10 in GB
.
.
.
0.5 = no questions correct, but valid attempt made = 5/10 in GB
0 = no attempt at all = 0/10 in GB

When I handed them back, I had the students write their scores on their assignment sheet, and then went over this scale, I explained that they could reassess any skill they wanted to, BUT, they had to show proof of remediation first. They could bring in their completed practice problems, they could go to a tutor and bring back proof, they could do a variety of things, but they had to show me that they worked on that objective before I would allow them to reassess.

Thankfully, my "Partner in Crime" - the teacher next door that is just an amazing person to work with - is trying SBG with me, so we sat down and ironed out some more details after seeing how long this process had taken. We recognized right away that we would need to have some rules in place to keep ourselves sane if we were to do this all year. Here's some of the guidelines we came up with:

Show remediation/HW when you appear for reassessment. If seeing a tutor, the tutor must sign off (with date) on your remediation work/notes.
Students can’t get tutoring and reassessment during the same session. (We don't want students storing info into short term memory)
Reassessment days are limited to Mondays and Wednesdays before and after school and during Homeroom period, all by appointment.
Appointments must be made 24 hours in advance, and you must let us know which LT's you plan to reassess.
In one session, only LTs from the same quiz may be reassessed.
LTs should be reassessed in a timely manner, typically within one or two weeks of original quiz return.

After handing back their quizzes, I taught the first official lesson of Alg2 - solving absolute value equations. The next day, I gave a "Checkpoint" of 2 abs value equation questions. When students completed the Checkpoint, they raised their hand and I picked up their paper. As a class, we then worked the problems together so kids would immediately know how well they did. We also talked about if they struggled on the checkpoint, that was a key indicator to them that they needed to make sure and practice on that objective. Then, that night, I looked over the Checkpoints and wrote feedback on them (not a grade) so that students would have a permanent record to refer back to. This process continued for several days and then it was time for another quiz. The quiz over Lessons 1.4-1.6 had 4 objectives plus a Previous Knowledge section. Each of the 4 objectives had 3 questions each and graded by the above scale. The PK section also had 3 questions, one each from 3 separate objectives from the previous quiz. The PK section is not reported in the gradebook, it is only for information. After quizzing, we continued on to Chapter 2 and instead of giving traditional tests per chapter, we plan to test periodically over a chunk of learning targets. We want the studets to get away from the idea of "this chapter is over, we tested on it, now we can forget it".

That brings us to now - this week we will be testing for the first time and as part of that, will be teaching the students HOW to study for a math test. Overall, this process has been rewarding, but a lot more time-consuming than I had anticipated. I have really liked being able to see where students have struggled specifically, and it's been interesting that almost every student has had at least one objective that they did very well in. Before, that success would have been hidden in the overall score. I've also appreciated the feedback from the parents and students when they see their scores and knowing what exactly it is they need to work on. There are still a few kinks to work out (especially in terms of time needed to grade), but I'm getting there :)

Now, off for a pedi and relaxation time! Have a great day :)

What a Whirlwind Week!

2010-08-21T08:39:00.000-07:00

Holy Moly - I've already been in school for 2 weeks!!! Where, oh where, did the time go? :)

The Good:

During our pre-service days, the meetings were short and time in classrooms was maximized. Even so, I still was in my room until 8pm the evening before kids arrived! Had a meeting with my evaluating principal to fill him in on SBG, just in case of parent questions or concerns, and his response was very positive.
On the first day with kids, we did math - it was great!!! The kids responded very positively, realized they would be working in partners and expected to work the whole hour right away.
When I did finally go over the "rules", the kids were staring at me blankly when I talked about SBG - so then on Monday, they took a quiz over Order of Operations, Simplifying Expressions, and 1-variable Equations. I did not teach the material at all, just quizzed it (previous knowledge). Went over SBG again and light bulbs started going off - "You mean we don't have to get a bad grade?" was a common question :)
When I handed back the quizzes the next day, I was very pleased to see how easy it was for me, the kids, and their parents to see which Learning Targets they truly needed to work on. Instead of throwing away their quiz like in previous years, the kids actually started reworking the problems, trying to find their errors! They got together with other students for help, came up to ask me, etc - SCORE!
On a daily basis, we have been giving "Checkpoints" of 2 or so questions from the previous day's lesson in Algebra 2 - it's been eye-opening to say the least. I am grateful for the opportunity to identify errors early on, and the kids know that if they struggled, that's a sign they need to make sure to do the practice problems for that LT, before the LT Quiz.
My students have been AWESOME so far in all of my classes. They have been willing to work hard, working problems, discussing with their partner, and overall great in their engagement during class.
My adaptation of "Rolling Down the River" for Stats really seemed to work well. I think my kiddos have a better understanding this year of Stratified Sampling vs. Cluster Sampling than ever before.

The Bad:

Due to budget cuts, class sizes are pretty large all around. I have 30 kids in my 6th hour Algebra 2! Sadly, many teachers have way more kids than I do :(
I did not anticipate the time it would take to grade the first quiz. It took me about 5 hours to grade 55 Algebra 2 quizzes. The next day, Partner Teacher and I sat down to clarify our grading scale to help that issue.
I was not prepared for the inconsistency of the student responses for seemingly basic problems - I thought we had done a good job of identifying Level 1, Level 2, and Level 3 questions for each LT
Writing feedback on the daily "Checkpoints" is also time consuming, but very worthwhile I think. I hope as the year goes on, it will get easier :)
A summer storm fried the VGA ports of the projectors in my hallway, so I'm making do with an ancient inFocus and a laptop that is so old, it has an interchangable CD/Floppy drive.
I've struggled so far to find my "mojo" - pretty much, I've been planning the next day's lesson the night before - that isn't going to work for me for much longer! :) So if you happen to have some spare "mojo" lying around, please send it my way!

Overall, I've had a pretty good two weeks, but I'm just plain ole worn out. I feel asleep last night at 8pm and woke up this morning at 8am... I'm already ready for Labor Day - I need the break!

Ready or Not...

2010-08-03T16:31:00.000-07:00

The time has come yet again... time for new markers, shiny floors, and curious teenagers is upon us. Next week marks the official end of summer for me, with kids returning to the classroom on Thursday. With that in mind, it's time for me to put on paper all of the changes I plan to make, mainly so I can come back and remind myself periodically about the goals I had from the summer :)

SBG - As any reader of this blog should be able to figure out very quickly, one major change for this year will be Standards Based Grading (SBG) in my Algebra 2 classes. I'm not going to hash it all out again, because most of the posts this summer have been about SBG :)
Daily Warmups - Until I started really analyzing my classes this summer, I did not realize how much my daily warmup routine really bothered me! My previous routine was to give a handout on Monday with previous knowledge problems that the kids then turned in on Friday. While it was a great idea, it ended up more as a copy-fest for points :( This year, I am assigning partners based on the seating chart and will be doing problem solving and critical thinking in Alg2, with one day being a weekly multiple choice partner quiz in prep for our state exam. In Stat, they will have a different warmup on different days of the week, but again, they will most be with partners.
Feedback - I need to greatly improve on how I communicate to kids on where they are and how they can get to where they need to be. In my mind's eye, I see this happening a lot through "Quick Checks" (a quick HW like problem that they solve and turn in) or "Exit Slips" (a quick journal style prompt). Whatever I end up doing here, these feedback opportunties will allow me to see where kids are at, make comments on how they can improve, but they will not be "scored" in the sense that kids will get a number grade on the top of the paper.
Problem-Based Learning - I really like putting my kids in groups to "cuss and discuss" their way through a problem. I would like to gather more resources on good problems for both stat and alg2 that my kids can explore with their partner/groups. I find that in most cases, the discussion that occurs within the groups is way better than most of my lectures :)
Writing - I really would like my kids to have pencil-to-paper more often, whether that is working problems in class, a journal prompt, blog "scribes" in stat, etc. I have reaffirmed my belief in how much is learned through writing this summer. I started this blog for my own reflection and though I will never profess to be a "writer", there is something about writing and getting thoughts down on paper that is just powerful beyond words. I want to pass this on to my students as well and help them discover this nugget of truth.
Bookclub - One of the most powerful things to come out of this summer was the professional bookclub we started on twitter. We've read "Classroom Assessment and Grading that Works" by Marzano and currently are reading "Formative Assessment and Standards Based Grading" also by Marzano. Our next book is "How to Give Effective Feedback to Your Students" by Brookhart. While I love to read, I sometimes find myself putting things off. The bookclub is great for me because it keeps me accountable to a group of other professionals for reading and discussion. Of course, once school starts, our pace will slow down some, but I'm eager to continue learning with this amazing group of people!

I know this year has potential to be very busy and overwhelming, but I'm really excited about the changes I plan to make. This year will pose it's own challenges in terms of budget and morale, but I'm determined to make it a good year and I know with the support of my PLN, it will be!

What are the changes you plan to make in your classroom?

Let's make it a great year or not.... the choice is YOURS! :)

Methods leading to Madness :)

2010-07-27T06:55:00.000-07:00

**This was an email that I sent to one of the instructional coaches at my school for feedback and realized that it would be good here too - feel free to tell me what you really think in the comments :) **

Dear Instructional Coach,

I sent you a message a while back about how I would like to change my assessment practices. I am currently doing an online book study for Classroom Assessment and Grading that works by Marzano and next week we will start Formative Assessment and Standards Based Grading, also by Marzano. I have a pretty good understanding on the big ideas, but some of the detail issues still are evading my grasp :)

Ultimately, I believe an overall grade should reflect what a student has learned over the year, NOT how successful they were at accumulating points. Current practices are broken in that a student that understands the concepts but refuses to jump through the paperwork hoops "fails" the course and a student that has no clue but turns things in on time "passes" the course - that is just wrong in so many ways :( Also, I want my grading practices to be able to tell me exactly what a student does or does not know, broken down *by topic*. So there's where I am right now :)

I am pretty much contemplating two methods as of now... both are 100% assessment models and I would appreciate your thoughts if you have the time :)

**Note** In neither of these models does "homework" or "assignments" count in the grade. Students would still be expected to do warmups, homework, classwork, etc, but these are all ungraded categories. Ungraded can still mean that I take it up, look at it, write feedback/suggestions/comments on it, it just won't be assigned a numerical value in my gradebook.

Method #1 (Hybrid model)
Quizzes = 35%, Chapter/Unit Tests = 50%, Semester Final = 15%

Method #2 (More of a pure model)
Quizzes/Tests = 80%, Semester Final = 20%

In both methods, students would be provided with a list of learning targets for a chapter. Lessons would be taught as usual, although many opportunities for formative assessment would be provided through partner work, exit tickets, checkpoints (aka HW quizzes), but these would be ungraded opportunities. After a few lessons, a quiz would be given over the previous learning targets, with the grade broken down per target. Each learning target would have 3 levels of questions on the quiz (similar to the 3 levels of questions by Costa). Instead of one lump sum score, as in traditional grading, the quiz would have multiple scores, one for each learning target. This provides detailed information about which targets the students fully grasps, which ones are a work in progress, and which ones the student is essentially clueless on. The scores would be reported similar to:

4 = student successfully completes all levels of questions independently
3.5 = student successfully completes both level 1 and 2 questions independently and some level 3 questions with help
3 = student successfully completes both level 1 and 2 questions independently
2.5 = student successfully completes level 1 questions independently and some level 2 questions with help
2 = student successfully completes level 1 questions independently
1 = student successfully completes level 1 questions with help
0 = student does not successfully complete any of the questions, even with help

Now I haven't quite figured out how to translate those into my gradebook yet because our gradebook reports a pure percentage, so a 3/4 would convert to a 75%, even though a student scoring a 3/4 would be considered "proficient" and in my opinion deserves a high B, potentially even a low A. (Of course the discussion of "What does an A really mean" is a whole 'nother ball of wax)

So let's say a quiz in Alg2 has 4 learning targets (the equivalent to 3 lessons or so) and you earn the following scores:
- Solve absolute value equations....................score: 3/4
- Solve and graph 1-variable inequalties............score: 3.5/4
- Solve and graph compound inequalities.............score: 2/4
- Solve and graph absolute value inequalities.......score: 1/4

It's clear to me as a teacher that you have a pretty decent grasp on the first two learning targets, but you need to work on the last two. You would have the opportunity to get some help on those learning targets (go to the peer tutoring lab, come in for tutoring, do the assigned practice problems, work out of your workbook, go to a tutor, do *something* to show that you have put forth effort in relearning the material), and then show me the evidence of your learning and earn the chance for a "re-test" of the deficient concepts. This new re-test would then replace the previous score in the gradebook as it is the most recent snapshot of your learning progression.

At the end of the chapter/unit, I had thought about having a traditional test, graded in a traditional manner, but that's the main part I'm really unsure of right now. I see the value in having a test that you can't re-assess, but then that assumes that everyone learns at the same rate, which I don't think is valid. However, I'm not sure I'm comfortable with the idea they can continously reassess for 80% of the grade, nor am I sure of my ability to stay sane if allowing that much reassessment. This is really one of the last sticking points for me on deciding which model to pursue. In model #1, the test is treated traditionally (aka summative), but in model #2, the test is also reported based on learning targets, just a bigger "chunk" of learning targets at once and also allowed reassessment.

Anyway, if you've made it to here, thank you very much for reading! It helped me to get it "out on paper"

Sincerely,
Me :)

My Paper Brain

2010-07-24T20:16:00.000-07:00

Last post, I shared with you some of my favorite tools for keeping myself sane and organized. Now I'm going to share my favorite lesson planning tool.

Yup - it's a 3 prong folder - great isn't it? Beautiful color and it's plastic so it won't easily tear. It's kind of a bizarre choice for a lesson planning tool, but for me it works :) See, I consider myself on that line between digital immigrant and digital native. I grew up with computers (at least, if you consider the TRS-80 a computer heheh), and when I went to college, the internet was just starting to be a big thing. But there is something about writing on paper with a pen that writes really well that a computer just can't duplicate.

Now let's venture to the inside of my folder...

This is my statistics brain :) Along the side you will notice post-it tabs with tabs for Misc, BTS (Back to School), all of my chapters, and Review. The Misc tab is where I put my braindump of ideas to reflect on, to change, goals I have for myself, etc. This picture is actually last year's idea list because I'm still working on this year's :)

Now let's look at the best part of my brain :)

This is where the action happens. This is a chapter page (specifically for Sampling Designs). I write ideas from the internet, workshops, conversations, news articles, etc here. This is my "index". When I get home from a workshop, I go through and remind myself of activities we did, worksheets I liked, videos that I can use AND where they are stored on my bookcase or computer file.

Somedays I think - wow, I really should put that into a google doc or something, and believe me, I've tried! I love using google docs to copy/paste URLs or random ideas or what-have-you, but there's just something about my paper brain that I can't let go of yet.

One of the things I need to do in the last few weeks of summer is to make a paper brain for Algebra 2 - last year, I was struggling to keep my head above water, so I didn't get one made :(

Do you have a paper brain? Do you have a way to organize your ideas to help make lesson planning easier for you?

Organizing the Classroom

2010-07-23T10:46:00.000-07:00

One interesting side effect of teaching is the feeling that you are a seasoned veteran when you are in your early 30s :) I don't feel like an "old" teacher, but am one of the most experienced teachers in my department. However, no matter how long I've taught, I still hope I feel like a first year teacher :) One of the joys of teaching is the fun of back to school shopping. For me, that not only includes fun new school supplies, but also looking at new ways to organize my classroom. I love finding ways to make my life more streamlined, so several of my favorite "teacher books" are actually ones aimed at new teachers and the chapter that I always love to read is the one on classroom forms. So I decided to share my favorite forms with you, the ones that truly make my life easier...

FYI - I did lose some formatting and almost all of my cool fonts when uploading these to google docs, but hopefully you get the idea :)

Weekly Planner
While I absolutely love digital toys, there is something about physically crossing items off a list that just makes me happy :) I print off 36 copies of this form and put it into a 3 brad folder w/ clear cover. This acts as my to-do list, lesson planner, appointments, etc. This is pretty much my brain during the school year. I cannot claim original ownership though - I did find this online several years ago and have adapted to fit my needs :)

Textbook Checkout Form and Book Roster
One of the issues that plagues most schools is keeping track of textbooks. For me, I've tried about everything from notecards to list making, etc. But finally I settled on this combination of forms that helps to simplify my life. When I hand out textbooks, students get the quarter sheet to fill out with their info, rating, and comments. My student aide then transcribes that info onto the Book Roster. I use the book roster throughout the year to do book checks for our holds list and then when a student turns in their textbook, I give them back their quarter sheet as a receipt. That way, if I accidently turn them into the office for an outstanding book, they have proof of having turned it in.

Cornell Notes Bookmark
A few years ago, I was at AVID training and our presenter had a bookmark that he made for his students. The bookmark can be customized with whatever information you want on it - grading policy, contact info, Costa's levels of questions, etc. I encourage all of my students to use Cornell Notes (and required w/ AVID students), but I hate the messiness of a hand drawn line. The idea here is for the students to put the bookmark in their notebook and use the right edge to draw a straight line down their paper. I copy this onto cardstock for my students and then while watching a great movie, spend a ton of time cutting them out :)

Attendance Sheet
Many moons ago, I used to keep track of my attendance in my paper gradebook. However, I didn't like the cluttered look, so instead, I use this instead. Since an entire quarter can fit on one page, I hole punch these and put into a 3 prong folder that stays on my podium. I put the seating chart for the class on the opposite page so that when I open my folder, I have the seating chart and attendance all facing me. Also, since it's a Word table, I can copy/paste my roster and don't have to write in the names!

Birthday Calendar
In the past, I've had students neatly write their name on this calendar and I've posted the monthly names on my birthday board. For this year, however, I read somewhere about a teacher that has the kids decorate an index card with their name, hour, and birthday and then she just posts the cards during that month instead. I really like this idea, so I will probably not use the calendar, but thought some of you might find it useful :) (Again, sorry about the formatting!)

Final Thoughts
What forms and organization tools do you find useful in the classroom?

Moving Around + Talking w/ Partners = Learning

2010-07-20T17:47:00.000-07:00

On my last post, MissCalcul8 asked me to expand on the idea of kids talking and working with their groups during class. I had actually already promised another teacher earlier in the same day that I would post some of the ideas I had found on Active Learning. So ladies, this one's for you :)

During the summer, I LOVE to read. There have been summers that I burned through novels at a rate of 1 per day. This year, however, it's all been about professional literature, which takes a bit more time to muddle through :) One of the books I picked up earlier in the summer was 'Why Didn't I Learn This in College'. I'm still working through it, but I really enjoyed the chapter on Active Learning strategies, which got me to researching some other strategies, etc.

Here's some of the favorites that I've found and my ideas of how I plan to implement them in my classroom.

Grouping Ideas
First off, let me say I <3 grouping my students randomly. I am always so impressed with the conversations that happen, how the kids work together to figure out a problem, etc. Most of the time, I just use a regular deck of cards, I stand in the hall and the kids draw a card, then sit at the correct cluster of desks in my room. However, I found this custom set of cards and I think it is SO cool :) Definitely going to make a set of these :)

Discussion with a Partner
According to the book linked above, 75% of our learners are extroverted thinkers and learning by talking. While this surprised me at first, the more I thought about it, the more I realized it was true. While I personally am not an auditory learner, I find myself learning TONS through discussions via twitter and brainstorming with my "real-life" colleagues. When engaged in discussion, you are having to process, synthesize, respond, question, etc. In the classroom, it would be easy to have students paired up, project a problem or question, have the students discuss with their partner, work through the problem together, and share with the class their consensus. During this discussion period, the teacher could circulate the room, listening in, looking at papers, etc.

Consensogram
A consensogram is a graph of what students know/feel about a topic. This is a similar idea to @CarissaJuneK's barometer on the MSWiki Page. I like this idea especially for a quick view about a topic, such as "I can solve a quadratic equation by factoring" and getting a quick snapshot of student feelings with them putting a mark in the appropriate column (frowny face, straight face, smiley face or whatever). This could be done quickly with a piece of paper and some stickers from the dollar store or even using clickers for a bit more anonymity.

Graffiti
I had seen this listed before as a "Gallery Walk", but I can see Graffiti being used in lots of ways. I love using post-it chart paper in my classroom and here's a strategy that integrates it! :) Basically, separate your students into groups and each group gets their own colored marker and a piece of chart paper with a problem (I'm envisioning word problem, proofs, etc). The group works on their problem, and after a set amount of time, ring a bell for teh groups to rotate to the next station. The group then reads the new problem and the work that has already been done, makes corrections and continues working the problem until the bell rings again and the groups again rotate.

Self Assessment Exit Ticket
While reading Eric Townsley's blog, I ran across this post, which alluded to a self-assessment form that he has his students fill out at the end of a lesson. I really like this idea for an exit ticket, where the kids let me know how they felt (smiley faces again) and points of confusion. This allows me to see where they are in terms of their learning, but I've done journals of this sort before and quickly got bogged down in responding to them. I'm still working on how to implement this one without getting bogged down.

3-2-1 strategy
The 3-2-1 strategy is usually used as a reading strategy. I am thinking of it more as an informal check of learning prior to a chapter test. Instead of the traditional 3-2-1 questions, I am thinking of "3 concepts I am solid on, 2 concepts that I feel shaky about, and 1 concept that I feel totally clueless about". I'm not sure how well it will adapt, but I like the idea :)

Final Thoughts
Overall, I believe that engaged students are better than passive students. With the "sage on the stage" model of teaching, the teacher is really the only one that is fully engaged in the classroom. As teachers, we need to make an effort to engage all students in our lessons. I hope you find these strategies as interesting as I did while researching. And feel free to add on your own favorite 'Active Learning' strategies in the comments!

What I've learned this summer...

2010-07-17T09:13:00.000-07:00

School starts in 3 weeks and as I reflect back on my summer, I find it interesting how far I've come. At the beginning of the summer I thought this year would be focused on relaxing, spending time with family, and looking at my new textbooks. Instead, here we are, towards the end of summer, my boxes are still in my living room, and I've spent most of the summer focused on formative and summative assessments, SBG, reading professional literature, and interacting with my twitter PLN, proving me more and more great ideas for implementation in my classroom.

That brings me to the purpose of this post... I've been reading and pondering a lot, but it's time to finalize my thoughts and determine my path for the year.

Grading Learning Targets
I've already posted about SBG a few times. I was grateful this morning to find some other learning target lists that are also pretty long, so I'm confident that we are on the right track with our list. I've also decided to go with a 5 point scale for my concept quizzes, mainly inspired by @jazlen and @Mrs_Fuller.

Being my first year with SBG, my classroom will look pretty traditional, with the major difference being how the score is broken down by LT rather than a cumulative quiz score. I will still quiz over 2-3 sections at a time, which works out to 3-4 LTs per quiz. Each LT will have a mix of questions (basic, above basic, and advanced/application/writing).

For grading purposes:
5 = advanced/exceeded standards, meaning they were able to knock the LT out of the park and would do a great job explaining the LT to someone else.
4 = proficient/met the standard, they have a pretty good grasp on the LT, probably could explain it to someone else
3 = basic/approaching the standard, they have a basic idea of the LT and can probably hem-haw their way around an explanation, but toss in any kind of twist and they are back at square one.
etc...

Classroom Instruction
Throughout classtime, students will be working with partners, talking & writing about math, which will provide me some informal assessment. In addition, I will also give either exit slips or HW quizzes to help me continue to assess gaps in learning. Last year I did give "quick checks" as quick, graded assignments, but this year I am thinking they will be ungraded and only for purposes of communication, so I can give the kids feedback on where they are.

Warmups, Bell-ringers, Problem of the Day
For the past several years, I've done these as a weekly grade that is turned in on Friday. In Geometry, I liked them a lot, but in Algebra 2, I grew to hate them with a passion. Students ended up copying them or not turning them in, and it really became a punitive grade more than a helpful review assignment. This year, I plan to have the kids work in groups of 3-4 on their problem solving skills. I will pull the problems from the NCTM calendars, ACT problems, End of Course exam problems, etc. The only kink I haven't worked out is making sure the kids do the problems if they are ungraded. We've trained kids from an early age to only do things if it's worth "points", so I'm thinking I may have to bribe them with a jolly rancher or something :) heheh

The Rules of the Game
I want to encourage my students to reassess LT's but I will have some rules
1) Students can only reassess one LT per day - hopefully that will help with the end of term rush to raise their grades
2) Students must show "proof" before reassessing an LT - they must have done the assigned problems, gone to our peer-tutoring lab, tutored with me or another teacher, or something they design. But I don't want them coming in to reassess without doing some remediation.
3) Students cannot get help and reassess on the same day. I see this feeding into the short term memory issue and I don't want to encourage that at all.
4) Students will need to schedule a day in advance for reassessments. I'm thinking of having an appointment book that they write their name, hour, and LT so I can get the reassessment ready for them. I also thought of a google form, but I don't want them signing up at midnight and thinking that is "advance notice" for me :)

Minor issues to resolve
I'm still not sure what to do about quiz security for absent kids and reassessments. I don't want to return a quiz/reassessment only to have it passed around so other kids can memorize it. I'm still working that one out in my head :)

Final Thoughts
It's been a crazy summer, both personally and professionally. On a personal note, I lost my best friend in the world after a very couragous fight with cancer. I am so grateful I got to spend the last days with her, laying in bed, watching TV, talking about nothing and everything. On the professional side, I have become drunk on the SBG kool-aid, re-examined a lot of beliefs and emerged more confident on the other side. Now to tackle that growing to-do list before kids bombard me in August :)

The Nitty-Gritty Details

2010-07-15T09:32:00.000-07:00

Ugh - I don't even know where to start! I've hit delete several times already and it's just the intro sentences!!!

I'm at an SBG roadblock. I am in complete agreement that SBG is where I want to be. I want my students and parents to be able to look at my gradebook and say "Oh man, I really need to study Learning Target (LT) #, #, and #, but check this out, I totally rocked LT # and #!"

But, then I run up against roadblocks... issues that I just can't figure out in my head and I end up wanting to just throw in the towel, but I know I can't - I believe in this system, I have confidence in how it can change my classroom. But I also know that I can't go into my admin and my only answer to his questions is "I don't know yet".

My current questions and issues:

1) Everyone has a different rubric and I'm not sure on which one is best. If you use SBG, could I beg you to post your rubric in the comments? I'm currently thinking of a 0-5 scale, but I'm not positive. My current favorite is @jazlen's Advanced/Proficient/Basic/Below Basic/Far below Basic and then add in 0 = doesn't have a clue in the world.

2) Speaking of rubrics, how do those translate to a traditional gradebook program? I don't have a choice about the program we use and it will automatically change a grade to a percentage scale. So if I use a 4 point rubric with 3 as "meeting standards", the computer will auto change that to a 75%. That really bothers me. I read the post on Edu-Ma-Ca-Tion on this same topic and I'm still not sure how to resolve.

3) How do you organize their concept checklists? Many use something like Dan Meyer's list and I like that too. I am thinking of giving them the list for the chapter along w/ their suggested practice (homework) and important terms sheet. They would need to keep a section in their notebook for each of these chapter sheets.

4) How do you keep track of the paperwork? I keep a papergradebook because of several issues - only have access to online GB at school, having backup in case of hackers (yes, it happened), etc. However, I struggle to visualize what an SBG paper gradebook would even look like!!! Ugh

5) What does a concept quiz look like to you? Some people give multiple quizzes w/ progressively more difficult questions, some give one quiz with various difficulty on that quiz, some do "traditional" quizzes with only difference being the score reporting.

6) Speaking of, how many times do you assess each concept? My current thought is quiz w/ various difficulty problems (which they can reassess), then see again on chapter/unit test. There will also be some ungraded assessments, maybe a "HW quiz" every so often, plus the possibility of showing up under the "previous knowledge" section on future tests.

7) I am a huge proponent of "previous knowledge" and "spiraling" and "not giving kids permission to forget" - so in that vein, should their grades be able to backslide? I know some SBG people allow grades to go down, some don't, I'm leaning toward the "grade needs to reflect current knowlege, so grade can go down" camp, what is your thought on it?

Sigh - I think that's it for now... I know it seems like a ton of questions, and believe me, I have spent time discussing with some of the best minds I know and yet I continue to feel clueless on these details. I have 4 weeks and counting to get these things figured out...

Thanks for reading - and taking the time to respond :)

Every answer leads to more questions...

2010-06-28T17:55:00.000-07:00

Last night, I had the chance to chat online with my teacher-next-door buddy. She and I often are partners-in-crime when it comes to trying new things, so I was so eager to share the idea of SBG with her and get her feedback. After chatting some and sending her off to view @k8nowak's Jing video and to view some blogs, she was totally on board with trying it. Today we met for a very long lunch to hammer out some of the details and figure out questions we are still fuzzy on.

Our Plan of Attack
After thinking through some of the articles we had read, we decided to start with our textbook and set up our learning targets for the first few chapters. Our state is adopting brand new textbooks this year and we are pretty limited in terms of the order of topics and sections we have to teach. We started with Chapter 1, and using the objectives for each section and the homework problems as a guide, we came up with the following list. LT = Learning Target, then the numbers represent the Chapter.Section.Objective

Chapter 1: Equations & Inequalities
LT 1.1.1: Use order of operations to evaluate expressions
LT 1.2.1: Simplify expressions using properties of real numbers
LT 1.3.1: Translate verbal expressions & equations to algebraic and vice versa
LT 1.3.2: Solve 1-variable equations
LT 1.3.3: Solve literal equations for a specified variable
**Note: All of the above LT's are going to be assessed using a quiz, but will not be taught - they were covered at the end of Geometry. Students can reassess these LT's if needed. Section 1.4 then, is the first taught lesson.
LT 1.4.1: Solve absolute value equations
LT 1.5.1: Solve and graph 1-variable inequalites (& interval notation)
LT 1.6.1: Solve and graph compound inequalities
LT 1.6.2: Solve and graph 1-variable absolute value inequalities

Then we repeated this for Chapter 2 - and that's as far as we got today :)

It's possible that doing it this way, we may end up wth way too many LT's and that's okay - we recognize this is a work in progress :)

So method wise, we have discussed both Kate's "2 quizzes per goal" method as well as small non-graded assessments, with a traditional quiz after every 2-4 sections with the only difference between this year and last year being the grading breakdown. I see pros and cons in both, especially considering we are doing a "hybrid" model, where we will still have traditional tests at the end of each chapter that are summative.

Ideas we are sold on

We both definitely like the idea that students cannot get tutoring and re-assess on the same day. We both agree this feeds into the short term memory issue.
We do want kids to have to schedule an appointment for reassessment so we can make sure and have one ready for them - this planning will be necessary so we don't feel so frazzled
We both like the idea of some kind of notebook where the kids keep their checklist of skills as well as their scores (I think this is either from Kate or Jason)
We do agree that we do not want to give our students permission to forget, so as LT's come up in our previous knowledge sections, student grades can go down (but they can still come in and reassess if that happens)

Issues and questions we still have

We aren't sure which rubric we want to use - probably will be 5 pt, simply b/c I like multiples of 5 in my gradebook :)
If we do 2 assessments and add them together like some people do, then the student comes in to reassess, which two scores then get added? Like say I got a 3 the first time, a 2 the second time, then reassessed and got a 4 - which ones go into the gradebook?
What happens when a student is absent? Our quizzes right now are fairly traditional - and I forsee them staying that way with only big change being at the top where each LT is listed. If a kid is absent on quiz day, do they take it the next day? Take zeros on that quiz and have to do the reassessments for those LTs? Take a makeup quiz? Right now, we give 2 versions of the quiz and we show it to them, but they don't get to keep until everyone has taken it, but that won't work if we are trying to provide the quiz as a study guide.
How much proof do we need to require in order to reassess? Obviously for the first reassessment, they have to show they have attempted the assigned practice problems for that LT, but what about after that? Tutoring with a teacher or our peer tutoring lab would work as well.
For those that do a hybrid model, what is your percentage breakdown for grading categories?
We are thinking of doing away with our warmups - they have ended up more punitive than we meant for them to - what do you guys do at the beginning of the hour instead?
AN IMPORTANT ISSUE: How do you grade a problem that addresses multiple LTs?
ANOTHER IMPORTANT ISSUE: What do you do with something that is important, but maybe not enough to get it's own LT? Like for example: Function evaluation in function notation - F(3) = ? - This is something the kids need to know but I'm not sure that it's a big enough topic for it's own LT, especially when often it fits under evaluating expressions.

I need to send a HUGE thank you to all of my twitter PLN that have patiently answered TONS of questions, listened to me brainstorm, provided feedback, asked questions to make me think things through, and just in general for being there :) I can never tell you guys how much I appreciate you!

Suggestions and comments welcomed, as always :)

My foray into SBG

2010-06-27T09:54:00.000-07:00

Over the past week, there have been lots of discussions on twitter about implementing Standards Based Grading (SBG). Here is a braindump of my ideas on how to use SBG in my classroom. Feel free to rip it apart, that's the best way for me to learn :)

Main Motivation
I know the current model is broken. I had a situation this year with a student that worked his/her tail off when test day was coming, but that's it. He/She did pass my class, but throughout it all, I just felt slimy. I knew his/her test grade did not reflect his/her knowledge and that really bothered me. Some students "rent" the knowledge until test day, but never "own" the information. I want kids to "own" it. Every year, I struggle with this. I think overall I'm a pretty good teacher and I try to get better every year. I am always thinking of ways that I can be more effective in the classroom and how to better help my students.

Some minor issues:
I am convinced that SBG is the way to go. I want students, parents, and myself to know exactly where students are and what they need to improve on. However, I also have some limitations within my district. We have an online gradebook that we are required to use and we must enter at least one grade per week. Horizontally, we give common finals and benchmark exams. We have a district guide for order of topics and overall pacing and we are supposed to be within a couple of days of the other teachers of the course. To add to this, every year the district surprises us in August with new mandates, so I can't totally go SBG or otherwise, I would just end up extremely pissed in August when the rug is pulled out from under me :)

My plan:
With the above limitations, I have decided a hybrid model based on converstaions with my twitter PLN. Also, I only plan to try this in my Alg2 class for this year. Basically, for this first year, I will be pretty traditional, but more detailed. I will still give an assignment sheet for the chapter, although I will probably break it down a bit more, so that instead of just the lesson title and assignment, I will have the lesson title, then the learning targets (standards) for that lesson and the practice problems for that learning target (LT). As Kate Nowak says "Then, I teach". After a few lessons, I would give a quiz, similar to traditional quizzes, but instead of giving a total grade (13 points earned out of 15), it would be separated by LTs (order of operations, whatever) and a kid would get 3 or 4 different grades for the quiz (one for each LT). Rinse, repeat... Then it comes time for the chapter test. I will probably keep the chapter tests like normal (we will be more than likely moving to common tests there anyway).

Issues I'm still pondering

I'm not sure yet how often I will reassess a LT in class - some people do 2 times in class on 2 different quizzes, but time may be an issue, dunno yet
I'm not sure how to format my paper gradebook - I use the Whaley 3-line gradebook, but may have to go to a self-created gradebook since quiz grades will now take up 3-4 columns rather than 1
I've not discussed this idea with my admin and so I'm not sure how this will go over. I have awesome admin, but we'll see how it goes :)
Each LT will receive a grade on a 4 or 5 point scale (not sure yet, I've seen both and still mulling over the idea)
I would really like to integrate more application and writing skills into these quizzes rather than just skills based
I've seen others comment that kids have a limit on how many LTs they can reassess per day, not sure what I think about that, definitely agree on the "can't reassess on same day as you got help on the LT"
I'm worried that with the reassessments, some kids will still "rent" for their low skills, trying to get their grades further up that A/B/C scale
The time committment does stress me out a bit. I have 3 preps plus teach at a Div I university - I already spend way too many hours grading and planning. The idea of creating multiple assessments freaks me out.
Currently I do "Quick Checks" which are similar to what others call "Homework Quizzes", except I give them the problem rather than saying "write #3 on your paper". I'm thinking these Quick Checks could be part of my quizzing system & can be put on the Promethean, thus helping the copy paper/budget situation

Final Thoughts As you can see, I still have way more questions than answers. I don't know how to fix some of the issues above yet - but I'm working on it. I have my PLN, books by Marzano, Reeves, and other assessment gurus. I will be ready when August arrives :)

The End is Here :)

2010-06-24T18:49:00.000-07:00

I've come to the end of my Literacy book - what I thought would be a fast read (< 100 pages) has taken me a week to read. Of course, taking the time to annotate the book (my AVID buddies would be SO proud of me), blogging about what I've earned, and of course spending LOTS of time on twitter learning about a multitude of things have slowed me down a bit. And while I can easily burn through a lengthy novel in a day or two, professional literature just doesn't flow at that same level :)However, I am eager to move on to my other books (especially those about assessment & Standards Based Grading), so I'm trying to get this one finished up. As such, this post will not be as lengthy as the previous posts (which is probably a good thing!)

Make a Picture! Make a Picture! Make a Picture!
Chapter 4 was about Graphic Representations in the math classroom. While this chapter was an enjoyable read, with several vignettes, I really didn't learn much. Of course, I am a VERY visual learner, so maybe I already knew this chapter's information from experience.

The main theme of this chapter was that student drawings allowed us to catch a glimpse of student thinking processes, which can be extremely helpful for students who cannot fully explain verbally where their confusion lies. Through the power of a diagram, teachers may find that what makes sense to our more mature thought processes does not make sense to our students based on their prior knowledge. One example in this chapter was about quadrupling a recipe that called for 1 1/4 cups of flour. Without prior knowledge of how "cups" relate, the student answered that they needed 8 total cups of flour in the new recipe - 4 big ones and 4 small ones. I'm not much of a cook, and as a kid, I rarely spent time watching my parents cook, so I could have easily had this same misconception when I was younger. As teachers, we have to be careful that we don't assume that students have prior knowledge about everyday things and having the students draw a picture can help us pinpoint these problems.

As math teachers, we often tell our students (particulary with a "word problem") to draw a picture. Using graphics helps with teacher assessment, but more importantly it allows students to make connections between the words and the concepts. For visual and hands-on learners, making a picture may be vital to the learning process because it forces them to slow down and process. For me personally, I am not auditory at all - I struggle in traditional classrooms, in meetings, listening to NPR, because I have to focus so much on what is being said that I can't keep up. :)

Talk it up!
The last literacy strategy of the book is discourse, which is what Chapter 5 is devoted to. This strategy comes easier to me in Stats than in Algebra, mainly due to the nature of the course. Even so, I still came away with some useful jewels of knowledge.

One of the first statements in this chapter says that "discussion and argumentation improve conceptual understanding." Personally, that statement shows itself to me all of the time via my twitter PLN. For example, this morning, I tweeted a question about standards based grading, which lead to a lengthy conversation with several colleagues, a few new blogs to read, and in the end, way more questions than I had started with. This discourse with my peers truly improved my understanding of SBG and allowed me to put the puzzle pieces together in my head of how to implement SBG in the classroom. The free-flowing idea stream that came out of today's discussion was simply amazing, although in the classroom, I could definitely see where this "non-controlled" environment could stress some teachers out. I had no idea where my question would lead me and in the classroom, that can be a scary thought (especially depending on your clientele!)

I have always tried to keep my classroom open for discussion, often asking students "why" in order to get them to explain their thinking. However, I may change that. One teacher that is used as an example in this book uses the word "More?" as a way to keep kids talking about an idea and appending previous student comments. I like that idea because it opens up the discussion to more than just an explanation - it could be any comment about the idea at hand.

The other big idea that I got from this chapter that will impact my classroom is this: "Rich, deep, and argumentative discussions occur when students display their work and present their strategies". I really need to have students tackling more application-rich problems and presenting their findings to the class. Of course, while I know that I need to do it and I really think I would enjoy doing it, I have no earthy idea of where to start, so obviously some research will be required there. I'll get back to you on that :)

A couple of other tidbits I got from this chapter:
- Don't rush to save kids too quickly. Often they will discover and correct errors on their own as they think and explain their reasoning.
- Have students share their methods, esp non-traditional, as it help everyone grow mathematically (I had this happen this year as a student noticed a pattern w/ perpendicular slopes when the equations were written in standard form - love when kids come up with their own algorithms!)
- Don't have kids just memorize vocabulary - they need to process the concept before the vocab word makes any sense to them
- Graphic organizers are great tools, but in order for students to truly expand learning w/ these tools, they need to discuss and share with others in order to clarify thinking

The big ideas...
Overall, I really enjoyed this book. I came away with a lot of ideas on integrating reading, writing, graphical representations, and discussion in my classroom. I know that not all of those ideas will make it into my classroom this year, but that's part of the purpose of this blog - to act as my "holding place" for my "mindful mediation" :) Having these thoughts written down here will help me throughout the years as I reflect back on previous ideas and things I want to change. Now I get to dig through my treasure trove of books from last week to find my next mind-bending adventure....

Writing in Math

2010-06-23T09:45:00.000-07:00

Chapter 3 of Literacy Strategies is about writing in the math classroom. I was particulary interested in this chapter because the topic of writing (journals, learning logs, etc) has come up several times recently in discussions with my twitter PLN. While I got some great ideas from this chapter, I'm ultimately left with more questions than answers about how to integrate writing effectively.

We all know writing has great benefits. For the student, they are provided a canvas in which to develop their communication and thinking skills, and for the teacher, an avenue in which to assess how well the student understands and processes a concept. The author of this chapter relates writing as "mindful meditation" and the page as a "holding place for our thoughts". To me, that idea is the basis behind a journal or a blog. I've never been much of a writer, but even I find writing on this blog to be very useful for my personal and professional growth/reflection (aka mindful mediation) and I've often used my blog as a minddump of ideas that I haven't fleshed out, but that I don't want to forget. However, I had never quite put that idea into the classroom.

In the classroom, I would guess most of us rely on verbal communication, whether that comes from lecture, student responses, etc, yet all of us would like for all students to be engaged in the classroom. The author points out that only one student at a time is able to speak, but if we ask them to write instead, this encourage more participation because the entire class can be involved at the same time. Again, a simple idea, but one that I had never quite thought of. Ultimately, I would like to get to the place of presenting a problem, having students think and write individually, then work with a peer group to refine and edit, but worry about issues like student buy-in and wondering if kids will take it seriously or just jot down random things and not really grasp the benefit of the writing.

One point that the author made that I struggle with is that the thinking involved in writing/explaining is different than the thinking needed for solving a problem. All of us have experienced this issue. Students can find the answer to the problem, but struggle with explaining the how and why of their work. You may have even had a situation where a student could explain a topic (such as multiplication), but has very little computational fluency. There must be a balance between these two types of thinking and I'm not sure where that balance lies. We want students to be successful in both conceptual and computational learning, but how do we find that balance?

Writing in the classroom should allow us to open a dialouge with our students. When presenting them with a task that requires them to explain their thinking, we should take advantage of that opportunity to assess their thought process and any gaps or misconceptions. The teacher taking the time to read and respond to student writing on a regular basis is important in order to help students develop clarity in mathematical thinking and communication. However, that poses another question - where do we find the time? Obviously reading and responding to written responses will take a lot more time than grading a traditional math assignment. Also, many writing assignments may just be an informal assessment, gauging where students are conceptually and are never meant to be entered into a gradebook.

This chapter also provided insight on how writing can help ELD and SPED students develop mathematically. One point the author makes is that for both of these subgroups, there is a need for teacher assistance in organizing their thoughts through structured-response prompts. As confidence grows, the teacher can provide less and less structure until the student is performing independently. In my opinion, all students, not just ELD and SPED, could benefit from this structure as they are learning how to write in the math classroom.

Overall, I leave this chapter feeling convinced of the power of the written word in helping a student learn math and to reflect on their learning. I still struggle with some of the practical questions that come with this idea, such as the time issue, needed balance, etc. I feel like this post is more of a jumble of random thoughts instead of a cohesive review, but that may be appropriate considering that I feel quite lost and jumbled in how to effectively apply this strategy to my classroom. :)

Reading in Math

2010-06-20T14:11:00.000-07:00

Chapter 2 of Literacy Strategies (which, btw, is freely available for you to read at the ASCD website), really made me squirm in my seat. When I was a kid, our pastor used to (and still does) get up on Sunday mornings and preach his heart out. More sermons than I can remember had him saying that when he was praying about and researching for that week's message, that he felt convicted, that God had "really stepped on his (the pastors) toes" that week. After reading this chapter, I knew exactly the feeling that Pastor meant. This book really stepped on my teacher toes this weekend and I feel very convicted as a result.

This book is a collection of essays from a group of teachers, and as such, this chapter was much smoother to read, but very deep in content. The big idea of this chapter is this: Ultimiately, the responsibility in teaching a student to read a math textbook lies with us, the math teachers. Granted, we have not had formal instruction on how to teach reading, but their reading teachers probably haven't had formal instruction on technical texts either. Here's a list of ideas from this chapter and my reaction...

Book: Traditional math instruction is training, not education. Students can perform procedures on cue like a trained animal, but have not really learned the mathematics until they can apply it.
Me: OUCH!! If that didn't step on toes, I don't know what will. This idea really knocked me on my rear and I had to step away from the book for awhile to process. I felt very convicted by this statement. How often do we train them for a standardized test, train them how to use an algorithm, without teaching them the true concept beind the computations? I can think of many examples in Algebra 2 this year where, after feeling beat down by pacing, snow days, family issues, lack of sleep, etc, that I resorted to "here's how you do this problem" rather than the WHY of doing the problem. This statement still has the power to knock the wind right out of me :(

Book: Math texts contain more concepts per sentence and paragraph than any other type of test. The text contains words, numbers, and symbols that must be decoded. The eye must travel in a variety of ways that is unnatural to reading (both left/right, up/down, graphs, charts). While reading, some information is extra and must be discarded by the brain, yet still distracts the reader.
Me: I paraphrased the above of course, but I had never sat down and really analyzed the difficulty in reading a math book. Because, as math teachers, we are (hopefully) math literate, our brains ignore all of the issues that are listed above, but as a young reader, can you imagine trying to tackle that? How overwhelming! This section hit home so much that I had to read part of it to my husband because I had never thought of a math book this way. Another issue that I would add to their analysis is the weight of books - holy moly! Those suckers are HUGE!!! Definitely not the book I'm going to sprawl out beside the pool reading :)

Book: "If we are really trying to help students read and understand for themselves, we must ask them questions instead of explicitly telling them what the text means"
Me: Another big OUCH here. How many of us, when a kid comes up and says "I don't get it", just tell the student what to do, rather than asking questions to lead to understanding? Questions like, "Can you read the instructions to me?" "What does this word mean?" "What is the problem asking you to find?". I try to be good at asking questions, often to the frustration of some students, but there are times, when I'm feeling rushed, or multi-tasking, or whatever that instead of asking questions about what they've read, that I give them too much information. Asking questions is also important because it helps me figure out where a student's misconception lies.

Random other tidbits that I picked up from this chapter:
The language itself poses a huge problem. The same word in Math-speak and in English do not mean the same thing. In addition, small words make a big difference (percent of vs percent off). To further compound the issue, clarity in written and spoken language can create complications for students as well. Vocabulary (or lack thereof) can be a huge issue and graphic organizers can be very useful for students to clarify and organize the information.

Final thoughts:
Like with everything in the classroom, kids learn by modeling. As teachers, we need to model the processes we use to read and decode text. We need to "think aloud" while working through problems so that kids have a working example of how to tackle problems on their own. We need to break down the text into manageable "bite-sized" pieces and ask questions along the way to demonstrate the thinking process.

Gosh, after this chapter, I may have to find something more light-hearted to read... my toes *still* hurt!!!

Literacy Strategies

2010-06-18T16:30:00.000-07:00

Okay, so as previously mentioned, I am going to be spending some time in professional reading (but my new novels look awesome too!), and sharing some insight here. The first book I'm reading (about 100 pages, hence why it's #1 on the list) is Literacy Strategies for Improving Mathematics Instruction.

So far, I've tackled Chapter 1. I have to admit that I kept getting distracted and this isn't an easy read for me - I'm really not one for "goobly-gook speech patterns", I'm really a pretty simple-minded person at heart. I tend to like books that are more of a "say what ya gotta say and hush" type of book :) Edu-speak typically irritates me quicker than anything because most of the time I feel like they are either trying to impress me with their vast amounts of knowledge OR they want me to feel bad for not understanding a word they are saying. However, there was one part of Chapter 1 that really stood out to me....

In Chapter 1, the authors really spend time related Mathematics to other languages. It has its "nouns" (numbers, shapes, functions) and "verbs" (modeling, communicating, transforming) and as a "foreign language", we really should approach it more with ELL type-strategies. The authors shared experiences of "use it or lose it" with both mathematics and traditional foreign languages. For myself, I took 2 years of Spanish in HS, yet retained none of it long term. As the author points out, some of that is of course that lack of usage, but could also be attributed to the way I "learned" Spanish. In Spanish 1, we spent a lot of time on nouns and verbs - my teacher had a table at the front with all kinds of stuff - toys, household items, etc and she would hold up an item and name it, we would repeat it, etc. She also taught us verbs - toss, pet, touch, point, etc. This memorization was useful, but ultimately it was just memorization, not a true understanding of the language. (With that said, I *loved* my Spanish teacher - she was amazing at making it fun to learn). Another point made was regarding decoding the language of math, both symbols and words. For example, the same symbol horizontally (=) and vertically (||) means totally different things in math. Food for thought... especially in how to relate to those students learning BOTH the language of english AND the language of math at the same time.

Overall, I think I'm going to enjoy this book. The next chapters delve into the strategies, but I know that I personally have given lip-service to "math is its own language", without really understanding what that meant. They've definitely opened my eyes to issues I hadn't thought about.

Til next time... :)

A New Beginning :)

2010-06-18T15:25:00.000-07:00

Yeah, I know - I suck at keeping this blog up to date. This year was CRAZY busy for me, and as far as priorities went, this wasn't one. However, every day, I log in and read the updated blogs on my blogroll, so if I have time to do that, I can jot down a few ideas, right? :)

As with every summer, I have time to rest, relax, and mostly rejuvenate myself. I have found that Twitter is an amazing way to re-engerize my batteries and follow 100 of the most amazing math teachers in the world. After an awesome discussion on the value of homework, I was raring to go learn more about how to be a better teacher. Today was hubby's birthday, so he took the day off and we went trolling the town for books (our favorite thing to spend money on) and I came home with about 8 novels and about a dozen professional books. My plan is to read them and post reviews on here.

The first one up is Literacy STrategies for Improving Mathematics Instruction, so I'm off to read!!! Wish me luck! :)

Reflections on teaching

2009-09-07T16:35:00.001-07:00

This blog was started as a way for me to reflect on my teaching, which was mainly statistics at the time. However, I've taught stat for 10 years and this year my new AVID prep takes way more time than I ever guessed. I'm wondering if I should do a new blog for my AVID ideas or not.

This week is kind of easy on me AVID wise. We have tutorials on Tues and Thurs, so I will call each kid up individually to my desk to discuss their grades and have them start a weekly chart of their grades. Friday, we have a guest speaker from the Cyber Crimes division to talk about internet safety, police work, etc. I'm excited about it, although I will lose my planning period.

The lone day that I am teaching this week for AVID is Wednesday. We will be reading the article "Life Coach" from the Reader's Digest about a football coach that tries to instill good life lessons in his players. The kiddos will take notes, write a summary, write 3 questions, and find their 4 weekly vocab words from the article. The reason for this is because I've noticed that they aren't doing a very good job of using their vocab in a sentence, so I think I need to clarify the expectations further. After we read the article, we will discuss our tutorials and how they are going, how to decide which question to ask, how to ask good questions (especially in math! they want to write Level 1 questions), and how to write a good summary of the tutorial.

I think this will definitely become more of a reflective place for me than I've used it for in the past year or so... teaching AVID is a lot of fun, but it's definitely outside of my comfort zone, so I need a place to reflect, vent, write, etc.

In the words of one of our quotes from last week... Failure teachs success!

Post with no name...

2009-08-29T18:24:00.000-07:00

I don't know what to call it... it's partly a vent, partly a "yay kids"..

With AVID, I've tried very hard to do things right - to be a cop and a cheerleader at the same time, to find interesting ideas for lessons, to get them to work hard and do well in their classes and it's flat out exhausting!!

The kids have been together now for a year, with another teacher, so they know each other and very comfortable with each other (read: chatty). The lack of focus at the beginning of the hour was driving me insane, so I started this week giving them quotes to write down and write how it applies to their life. Great idea, but I don't know how to make it work as well in class as it does in my head. I don't know how to get the kids away from restating the quote and into its deeper meaning and how it applies to their life.

Also, I started doing vocab - trying to get them to increase their vocabulary. They have to write the definition, the synonyms, use it in a sentence, and make some mental connections with a diagram or word association. Again, it worked great in my head, but most are not taking it nearly as seriously as I want them to. The ultimate goal is so they don't end up where I was in college - not having a very good vocabulary and feeling stupid more times than not.

One last frustration is how to teach them to write good summaries. I want them to summarize something without it being "today we did" or "this is notes we took over"... but I don't know how to *teach* that skill :( My math teacher training is not helping me much with this class and that's a HUGE frustration.

On the positive side, they wrote GREAT notes to their teachers this week, did a great job of writing good quality questions, and overall worked pretty hard for me.

*sigh* I hope I get the hang of this someday...

Treading Water

2009-08-22T07:16:00.000-07:00

We've now completed two weeks of school (7 days with kids) and this week, uni is set to start. I am barely making it... Last night, while running some errands, hubby turned to me and said "Hun, I'm really worried about you - you can't keep this pace all year". My response: "I know - I'm worried too"

What's different about this year? Two new preps is a lot of it. Also, my 3rd prep (AP), which I've taught for 10 years, is always an ongoing project to me. I refine and revise every year. The hardest part for me this year is that I feel like I'm doing a very poor job on the new preps. I don't like doing a bad job at anything I do, so doing 2 bad jobs is about to kill me.

So, keep me in your thoughts - if you don't see me surface for a while, send the Coast Guard... my legs may get very tired of treading water :)

It has been too many days since my last confession

2009-07-31T08:27:00.000-07:00

I have been feeling guilty about not updating my blog, but was able to put it off - that is, until I read f(t) yesterday and found myself totally agreeing with her.

As a kid, I never kept a diary (I tried many times though!). In fact, I still have the first (and only) diary that I got when I was 7... it's only about a 1/3 filled and that includes through age 20! I didn't really expect much out of a blog either, nor did I ever expect to have readers or commenters. However, what I've found in the blogosphere is that this is an amazing place for reflection, collaboration, and the occasional vent.

By looking at my blogroll at the right, you can see that I follow mainly math teachers, with an occasional elementary teacher (love Mrs. Mimi!) or other subject matter teacher thrown in for their quirky sense of humor, writing style, etc. I enjoy reading the ups and downs of other classroom teachers, LOVE the WCYDWT feature on dy/dan, getting to peek anonymously into other classrooms :)

This summer I have also discovered Twitter, another tool that has been amazing for online collaboration. I follow a lot of the same people that I follow in blogs, but the feedback is what truly makes Twitter a useful tool. By posting a comment or question in 140 characters or less, you can open the lines of communication with other teachers and get almost instant responses about their policies, procedures, lesson ideas, etc. I don't think I would use Twitter much for my personal life, it has great applications professionally.

For me, this blog fills a huge gap in my teaching career. By forcing myself to descibe a situation clearly so that the reader can understand, I end up with a clearer understanding myself. This reflective nature of the blog is one of its greatest attributes.

Happy blogging!

Online book study?

2009-07-02T17:27:00.000-07:00

I've had a "d'oh" moment...

Let me preface this post with a bit of background...

I am an avid reader of fiction and comprehend fiction quite well, but struggle a lot with comprehension of difficult texts. I've known this for quite a while... in high school, I was in the single digit page numbers of Beowulf until the day we tested on it.. and in college, I was *so* eternally grateful for Monarch notes because they paraphrased the text into contempory language.

Last week, at our AVID summer institute, one of our assignments was to read an article about college readiness vs college preparedness. After struggling quite a while to read the edu-speak, the article became crystal clear during our group discussion of the material. This cycle repeated itself later on in the week when I had to read an editoral about 9/11 and we discussed it in a Socratic Seminar. These two examples really illustrated the power of discussion for deeper understanding.

Fast forward to this week... I was reading on AtoZTeacherForums and read a great post on "must-reads" for teachers. I started looking at my own professional library, and realized that I have many of the must-haves, but I haven't read them all and the few I have read were a while back. Coupled with my "a-ha" moment of last week, I decided to search out an online book study group, only to find that they really don't exist :(

So... the question at hand is...
1) Do you know of somewhere I should look? OR
2) Would any of you be interested in doing a book study?

Have a happy 4th!

Braindump of ideas...

2009-06-16T07:51:00.000-07:00

I just needed to get these out on "paper" in order to process them... and to make sure I don't forget them!! :)

* I really do like the idea of a wiki or blog for the kids to post daily or weekly or chapter summaries... Not sure how to implement this though, nor how to grade it. I don't want to change around my entire class website either, so I need to figure out how to implement it within that structure... Some grading ideas can be found here

* Another teacher I know has the kids create a study guide throughout the year with the thought of the AP exam in May. She has them take their chapter examples and a summary sheet of each chpater and compile them into a notebook. I like this idea - to build a study guide throughout the year. However I'm wondering what else should be included. Should it have some basic notes/instructions?? Some questions from the textbook? Vocab? If so, would this all be bundled as a "packet" handed out at the beginning of the chapter? Would kids regard this as busy work?

* Just ran across another interesting idea regarding partner quizzes. If the kids have their homework completed on time, they can earn the priviledge of taking a partner quiz. Of course, homework isn't required in my class, but I still thought it was an interesting idea to have the kids earn it.

* Second semester this year, I let the kids do test corrections for 1 week after the test was graded. They had to earn the opportunity by showing evidence of having done the homework or review. They had to explain why they messed up and then rework the problem correctly. I really liked this and plan to continue it. It had built-in remediation because the kids had to do their homework (if they hadn't already), plus they had to self-assess their errors.

* Speaking of HW, I was nervous about not requiring HW at the beginning. However, most kids really matured over the year! I still had some kids that wouldn't do it and their grades were low (I've never had this rate of D/F grades), BUT, I also had kids that went from minimial homework and C grades to almost every problem and high Bs because they had more control of their grade. By doing the homework, they did better on the quizzes (since the quizzes were from the HW). Overall, I think by giving the kids more control, they benefited more than if I had required it. While I hate that I had kids that did poorly and never learned that lesson, I would rather them learn it in HS than when it costs them a lot of money in college.

* I plan to give up more control this year and be more of a faciliator than a lecturer. I tried this 2nd semester and started most topics out with an activity that walked the kids through the gist of the topic. They had to read, discuss, write, and be more active in their learning overall. One kid summed it up when he said "I like doing the activities first before you teach the material - it gives my brain something to attach the lecture to!" Wow - what a profound statment! Making connections really helps material stick in their heads rather than just "renting" the material til the quiz/test.

* This year I had study groups for the kids to work with. This year, I think I want to modify that, either by assigning them to new seating charts (and new partners/triplets) every 9 weeks or something. The groups did not work out how I wanted them to. I had hoped they would get together outside of class, and some did in partners, but not as a group overall.

* Back to the online issue... I would really like to incorporate more online learning. I did online review quizzes on a weekly basis and I did like that more than doing them in-class. With the online feature, they could call up their buddy, talk through a problem, use their book/notes and the instant feedback was great for the kids. Some kids really preferred to do them in class, but I hated the time constraint that imposed and online gave them the freedom to really understand what hte question was asking and reach out for help. I would like to increase the online component using webquests, stat software, etc.

* Just found this website... Interesting review games, PPT timers... check it out :) http://people.uncw.edu/ertzbergerj/ppt_games.html

I'm sure I'll add more later...

Class Blogs and Other stuff

2009-06-02T16:34:00.000-07:00

Yesterday was my official last day of school - woot! After an uneventful Friday (which was wonderful after Thursday's fiasco!), I spent the weekend cleaning the backyard, going to a retirement party, etc. Yesterday I was pretty sore from the yard work, so packing up my room was a SLOW process :)

I leave for the reading on Thursday, so today I ran errands... bought a new suitcase, a few new clothes, and assorted other random items. Speaking of random... does anyone know where to buy "Key Lime Pie Mints" - they are the green and white swirled mints. I love those and wanted to have some in my purse for the trip.

While catching up on my blog reader this evening, I ran across this comment:

"I taught English, so we’re talking two different beasts here, but something I tried that went over with moderate success was having kids post class notes to our class wiki on a weekly, not daily, basis. Each semester I’d ask the kids to pair up and I’d assign each pair a week of the semester – you’re Sept 9, you’re Sept 16, etc. – for which they were responsible for keeping detailed records of class discussion, lecture, activities, etc. By the following Tuesday, they had to post the class notes to the course wiki."

Does anyone else do this? I'm loving the idea of having a pair of kids post a weekly summary for the class! Any ideas on format, how to grade, etc?

Can I Rewind?!?!

2009-05-28T18:12:00.000-07:00

Tomorrow is the last day of school with kiddos, so today we took final exams in the odd hours.

First hour goes by smoothly, I'm on plan so not much to do there... renew my teaching certificate online (only took 1 phone call to the state department to figure it out!), run a test over to in-house, visit with our district director for AVID, make copies, etc. All the makings of a good day :)

Third hour comes and I get the kiddos started on their test, all is fine. After their test, they say it's pretty easy. Repeat this for fifth hour.

After school, the "sh*t hits the fan" so to speak :) I go to the scantron machine to grade my finals around 3:15ish and there's a kid using the copy machine. I tell her she's not supposed to be using it, only teachers. Because I got sidetracked, I go off and leave the answer keys to the final on the scantron machine. I don't notice this until about 30 minutes later - OMG, adrenline starts pumping, I'm freaking out. I run over to the teacher workroom, they aren't there.. holy crap! I am going to have to go home and write new finals for geometry and go to Kinkos to make copies for all of the other Geometry teachers (common finals) - total freakout!

I go to the principal's office, afraid to tell many people what I've done. I'm a veteran teacher, pretty respected most days, and for me to lose a final is not the norm at all. I can't find the secretary, but instead I find our department curriculm coach (who is retiring) and her replacement. I sit down with them and about to burst into tears - this is SO unlike me to lose anything! The new curriculum person (a teacher I've known for years), goes with me to find the girl that was using the copier and she had already gone, but the teacher she was helping was still there, so we were able to get her phone number. The girl remembered a male teacher going in there and described his clothing. I went back to the office and asked the asst principal to show me the security tapes so I could figure out who it was. After about 30 minutes, we figured it out and the secretary let me into the teacher's room and thankfully he had picked them up and put them in a drawer.

My heart is STILL pounding!!! What a day!!! I want to show all of the helpers a token of appreciation, so I'm grabbing a small giftcard from a popular drink spot to tell then "Thanks for saving my rear today!!"

*Sigh* Calgon - Take me Away!!!

GRRR - Vent :)

2009-05-23T10:34:00.001-07:00

I hate when you have something to say but can't! I have a huge frustration that I would love to write about here, but although I have never said where I teach, etc, this blog just isn't anonymous enough for me to feel comfortable saying what I want to say. DH doesn't truly understand, although he is fully willing to listen, and most of my friends are busy since its a holiday weekend.

*sigh*

Mad Minutes

2009-05-17T16:00:00.001-07:00

I am currently grading an Algebra Review quiz that I gave my Geometry students. It floors me how many students miss problems due to integer arthimetic errors. So I've decided to do "mad minutes" in Alg 2 next year. I don't know how many of you remember Mad Minutes from gradeschool, but I'm bringing them back heheh... Here's a link to an Excel document that creates these... Mr. Beach's Spreadsheet

However, how do I grade them? I guess I need to reach out to some elementary buddies and ask them :) I'm thinking maybe some kind of team competition where the prizes are based on most improved team and highest scoring team per quarter.

Ideas welcome!

Finding time for your family

2009-05-10T13:40:00.000-07:00

I struggle sometimes with balance. Sometimes I focus so much on my students and school that I don't focus enough on my friends and family and this has been an ongoing argument for years. We have another couple that we try to go out with at least once a month and this past week, the guys set up a dinner date for us. We went out to eat and then to the new Star Trek film. OMG - what an amazing movie!! In fact, it was so awesome that we are taking MIL and FIL to the movies tonight to see it again for Mother's Day.

It's been such a crazy weekend... twice to the movies, seeing our moms, going to a real "biker" wedding (college roomie got married and her hubby is a biker - talk about a cultural experience!)

On a different note, hubby paid me a high compliment yesterday at my mom's. For the mothers, I made gift baskets of a variety of soaps I made. Hubby had gone to the restroom and later on, he made the comment to my mom about putting the soap in the bathrooms because he's gotten used to using my soap and it was weird to not have it there :) I am still basking in that praise! I assumed he used my soap simply to be nice, not because he really liked it. heheh

Happy Mother's Day to all!

The APs are coming!!

2009-05-02T15:30:00.000-07:00

In just a few short days, the 2009 AP exams will begin. I've done all that I can to help them do well... it's now 100% up to the kiddos.

With that in mind, I've started thinking about what I want to change for next year. As always, it seems like I'm changing more than I'm keeping - I just hope I can find the time over the next few months to get a bunch of changes in place. One goal that I really would like to accomplish is to use more news articles and real data sets in class, so I've spent some time setting up a google reader for stat stuff :)

What changes do you plan to make?

More cool stuff :)

2009-04-13T18:18:00.000-07:00

I am just loving this free stuff :) I have been trying to figure out how to incorporate stat software into my classes, but now I have multiple options!!! Here's another free software program for students and teachers:

Mystat 12

Also, if any of you did not check out Dan's (dy/dan) blog today, he was helping another math teacher with their smartboard lesson. It just happened to be a stat lesson and I know I got some great ideas out of it and I thought some of you may find it useful as well. Go check it out at dy/dan!!!

A weekend ramble

2009-04-11T18:32:00.000-07:00

My school is a suburban school that has fairly high expectations...

However, due to its good reputation for academics, our demographics are changing as people move in to take advantage of our educational system. Our "lifers" (kids who go here from K-12) are used to the high expectations because they've had them all the way up. The kids that move-in to our district sometimes have a rough time adjusting, and this group is growing daily

With the idea of the changing of the student body, I'm trying to find the right balance... I want to keep high expectations (of course), yet make AP accessible to all kids that are willing to work. I have been batting around the idea of guided notes, where they are fill in the blank, but I'm worried that is a crutch... I want the kids to be prepared for college level coursework, but sometimes I feel like I am leaving kids behind that just don't have the skills needed because this is their first AP course....

I know this is a small group of kids right now, but I'd rather be proactive than reactive... I've seen this group continue to grow throughout the years and I don't know what to do

Free!!:)

2009-04-09T17:13:00.000-07:00

Who doesn't like a great pricetag like that?? :)

On the AP listserv this week, an entirely free statistical software was posted. I just played with it for a while and it is a neat package. Take a few minutes and play :)

http://www.statcato.org/

Next Year's Schedule

2009-04-04T13:32:00.001-07:00

It's that time of the year again... kiddos have done their enrollment cards, their course selections have been entered, and we've been asked what we would like to teach. As it stands right now, there's a pretty good chance that I will be teaching Algebra 2, so I've been spending my day looking online to see what I can find...

Here's some of my best finds of the day :)
Savvy Minds Notecards - printable and free!

Algebra Activities - Love the Hexagonal games!

Factoring Trinomials - kind of cool!

March...out like a Lion, not a Lamb!

2009-03-28T07:51:00.000-07:00

Here it is, the last weekend in March and instead of wearing sandals like normal, we are under a winter storm warning. Last week we were in the mid 80s, today we're expecting 2-4 inches of snow... go figure!

It's been a long time since I've posted and there's been a lot that's happened...

- I have a student teacher... she's doing a great job and I've been very pleased with her progress. It's hard to release control of your class though! :)

- April is our crazy month in school... state testing is coming up in just a few weeks and we still have material to cover - EEKKK! The AP exam is 26 school days away and I'm not ready for that either! :)

- With the student teacher teaching my geometry classes, I've had lots of time to think about changes for next year in AP. One change that I have been thinking of is using packets for the chapter material, but I'm worried about the kids not being as prepared for college notes, etc if I do that. For organization purposes it would be easier since most of the handouts would be in packet format, but I'm just not sure about it..

Hope this month has been good for all of you!

Weekend Ramblings...

2009-02-28T07:05:00.000-08:00

What a week! I was asleep last night by 8:30 due to sheer exhaustion. It wasn't a bad week, just crazy busy! I'm getting a student teacher this next week, so getting ready for that has taken some time, plus it's enrollment time, etc etc etc :) This post is just a random smattering of ideas that I wanted to share, so please excuse the "brain dump" :)

Do any of you use "webquests" in the classroom? I have been trying to brainstorm ways to get my kiddos more involved in class by using more active-learning techniques. So far, it seems to be working, but I would like to push it further for next year. I ran across some stat webquests and they look like an interesting idea. Next year, I am planning on redoing my classroom website to be more of an online classroom. I've looked at Moodle and some of the other e-learning platforms and hoping to find the right one for me. Any suggestions on programs to look at?

I also figured out how to do "retakes" yesterday on my morning commute. I have a few students that just aren't getting it because they aren't doing the homework. So, I decided that in order for the student to *earn* the opportunity to retake, they had to show me evidence that they had done the homework. I think this will be manageable for me and has the added benefit of built in self-remediation.

I am also excited about the response from my collaboration post. By sharing the workload, I think life will be happier overall. I love the idea of active learning, but I was so afraid of feeling overwhelmed by creating all of those lessons. This way, I have other people to read, share, comment, critique, etc and life is much happier overall :)

Collaboration

2009-02-22T06:18:00.000-08:00

As I posted the other day, I am interested in revamping my entire curriculum in order to make my students work more and me less. The goal would be to create small group activities where my students have to read and write more and be more active in their learning while I circle the room. After they've worked through the activity, I will bring them back to a whole-class setting to discuss what they've learned and officially define vocab, etc. I've tried it for a few activities recently and the students have had positive response. The most important part for me is that they are having to *read* and understand what they've read rather than me *telling* them what's important info. I'm hoping this will lead to a stronger conceptual understanding of the material overall.

I would like to find some like-minded people that would be interested in collaborating on this project, to share some of the work and to act as a sounding board for each other. If interested, let me know :)

Interesting Article

2009-02-22T06:12:00.001-08:00

I don't know how many of you read the NY Times, but today there was an article posted on an education site that I visit. (Here is the article)

Anyway, the gist of the article is that many college professors are seeing students who believe they are entitled to good grades due to effort rather than meeting the standards. I see this in my K12 classes too. I have a girl in one of my geometry classes that came to me last week and asked why she was failing. I pointed to the 30 she made on a test and suggested that may be part of it. Her response was "But I've done all the work!". I agree, she has done all of the work, not a missing paper in sight - however, the quality of the work is not at a passing level.

I don't know how to fix this, but I do foresee it getting worse before it gets better.

The A-Ha moment :)

2009-02-17T15:36:00.000-08:00

I have taught for 11 years, stat for 9 of those and this weekend I had an "A-Ha" moment! I went to a 2-day workshop and both of the presenters mentioned that they like to do "discovery" lessons. Now, I've always considered myself part of that movement, but mostly with my Geometry classes. During the presentations and the days following, I've decided that I am doing too much work and the kids aren't doing enough.

Now what does this mean for me? It means this summer is going to be a MASSIVE undertaking of revamping my materials to be more reading/writing for the kids, more workshop-style activities. I'm a bit overwhelmed thinking about it :) I've always been hands-on, but typically it's been a review type activity, not an "active-learning" style activity. I tried it today with hypothesis tests. I created a handout that walked them through the thought process behind an HT with lots of notes and questions and then I let them work all hour rather than me working all hour. Tomorrow I will find out if it worked :) BUT - kids that typically stare at me seemed a lot more engaged than normal so I'm kind of excited about it.

I have decided that I need to create a index notebook with a piece of paper labeled for every chapter that I can jot ideas in and reference workshops/handouts/etc. After 9 years of teaching this, I have more *stuff* than I can keep track of in my mind, so I need a paper "brain" to help me keep organized :)

I would love to hear your ideas on this!

An Unscientific Poll :)

2009-01-09T19:05:00.000-08:00

I've already posted about my new hobby... Well, I've been thinking about possibly going to a local festival or two to try my hand at selling them. This is a ways off of course, but I'm also a planner - I like to have my ducks in a row!

With that said, I knew I wanted something with ladybugs (I collect ladybug stuff), so a friend of sis's suggested Spots and Dots. Hubby worked up a couple of logos and the only difference is the O in dots - I would love your opinions!! What do you think of the name, the logo, or do you have any other suggestions?

Oh - and pardon the poor quality - cell phone pics in a dark room hehehh
Thanks :)

On the 3rd day of no school, my true love gave to me.....

2008-12-17T12:18:00.001-08:00

I am getting rather bored here at home... I am hoping some of this ice melts soon!

Here's some really cool links I've found today though...

Correlation lab activities - Love this idea - totally stealing it for next year! :)

Ice Day!!!

2008-12-15T03:54:00.000-08:00

Yesterday it was 75*, then an artic cold front moved through and now we have 1/4" sheet of ice on the roads, so I get a day off!!! Of course, I am still up at the normal time, I just don't have to stress about getting ready :) However, my BIL, who also works for my school district, does have to go in because he's on the grounds crew.

On the up-side, I got 90% of my grading done yesterday, just have a couple of sets of quizzes left to grade and write the final for my uni class. Other than that, I will rest, read, make some candles, and just enjoy my day!

My only hope is that we have school tomorrow because our finals are Wed/Thurs, otherwise they will postpone them until January :(

My New Hobby :)

2008-11-27T13:38:00.000-08:00

I mentioned a few posts back that I had taken up a new hobby. I love the smell of candles but hate when I pay $10 or more for a candle that doesn't smell very well! I am deadly afraid of flames (totally my mom's fault!), so I am more of a "tart" or "melts" fan. Those are small discs that you put in a tart burner (mine is electric) that warms the tarts, melting them to release the scent. Each tart will last about 8 hours and they are very cheap to make. Hubby isn't feeling very well today so we stayed home rather than going to do the family thing, so that meant I was free to make lots of tarts! The above picture is my kitchen counter filled with my tart stuff. These are soooo addictive! I got 10 pounds of wax in the mail yesterday and I've already gone through 2 pounds! EEKKK! :)

The yellow is Warm Vanilla Sugar
The pinky/red is Home Sweet Home
The blue is Pina Colada
and the brown (not pictured) is Butter Pecan Pie

Pi (Chart) Day

2008-11-26T12:51:00.000-08:00

The other day my students were talking about Pi Day in Pre-Calculus. (That's March 14th for those non-mathy readers). I am thinking of doing Pi Chart Day where the students have to gather some categorical data and display it as a Pi Chart in the food medium of their choice (cake, pie, pizza, cookie cake, etc). Has anyone tried this? It would be a class competition with bonus points going to the top entries..

On a separate note, I don't know how many of you read the comments, but a recent comment pointed me to statpics.com which has some interesting pictures and commentary of statistics in the real world. I liked the normal distribution model from the dining booth myself :)

Must-Have Resource

2008-11-23T13:57:00.001-08:00

I don't know how many of you subscribe to the NCTM Mathematics Teacher magazine, but that that one of the must-haves for an AP Stat teacher IMO. Every month, there is at least one article that can be adapted to the AP classroom. On the up-side, while it is an expensive subscription, you get access to the online archives for free :)

The November issue was a focus issue for Statistics and as I browsed through, I realized that many of the "Media Clip" articles are *perfect* worksheets for AP and Pre-AP classrooms. The November issue had a probability problem and a confidence interval problem and I am expanding the probability problem to use tomorrow in class.

The December issue had a piece-wise function and a proprtions problem. The best part of these articles are that they are tied to a newspaper clipping, so it's very motivational for the classroom teacher to look to the "real world" to write a problem.

The more I think about it, I wish our curriculum person would type these up every month and pass them out to the appropriate teachers - what a wealth of knowledge!!!

I also use the calendar problems as "Weekly Challenges" in my Geometry class - Since you can cut/paste from the online archives, I just open the calendar each month and copy the problems I would want to use into a word document for future reference.

A Spur of the Moment Assignment...

2008-11-23T09:46:00.000-08:00

If you read the previous post, you know it's been a rough year at times. In times like this, I seem to lose the creative spark, so I'm always grateful when it returns!

A few weeks ago, I got an email from a lady I used to teach with. "Jane" and I taught Stat together, she had taught it the previous year, so she was my mentor. "Jane" moved at the end of that year and had not taught stat for several years at her new school, until she inherited it again last year. "Jane" asked me about the video series "Against All Odds", which is available for free on the Learner.org website. AAO has a sequel series called "Decisions Through Data" and that series comes with Video Guides, etc. "Jane" wanted to know if I had used these videos and their accompanying guides. This sparked my creativity :)

At the Uni, we are about to take a test over inference, including t-tests, proportions, and chi-square tests. I decided to make the "Against All Odds" series into an assignment. Each student was to choose one of the videos that covered the material we are about to test over and create a "study-guide" that other students could use to help them study for the upcoming test. The study guides were due this weekend and I just finished uploading them all to our class website and I must say, I'm pretty impressed with the quality of their work. I am thinking this may be a great review assignment for my AP kiddos for either their final or the AP exam.

I thought I would toss this idea out there for you guys in case any of you are needing a review idea. My students seemed to enjoy it - each video is about 30 minutes in length and while they are older, they do have some great information in them. I will probably create study guides myself for each of these videos over the summer so I will have them on those days when half my class is gone (like this week! LOL) and project the videos on the Promethean board. Could also be useful for students who are absent or for remediation after a bad test/quiz...

Have a great Thanksgiving!

Ups, Downs, and Down-and-Outs...

2008-11-23T09:36:00.001-08:00

For some reason, about this time every year, I get down and out. This year has been trying for both personal and professional reasons.

Last week, I had a melt-down... I had graded all day on Saturday and took a couple hours on Sunday to read (OMG - I took time for *myself*). Then, afterwards, I felt guilty! WTH??? I guarantee none of my students feel guilty if they don't get all of their homework done... Why should I deny myself time to rest and relax? Why should I be focused on them 100% of the time rather than my family and my sanity?

How did I solve my dilemna? Take up a new hobby of course!! LOL.. I decided life was too short - that I was personally putting all this pressure on myself and at the end of the day, all it does is add to my insanity. So I decided to take up candle-making (tart-making if you want specifics). Starting Wednesday evening, I've now made 4 batches, gave most of them away already, and have the stuff for 4 more batches in my kitchen right now. How liberating to have a hobby that is about ME rather than school! :)

Since Wednesday, I have been more able to focus on my kiddos, which makes me a better teacher. I have decided that I have been too focused on the details (like grading), and not enough on the stuff that truly matters (like quality lessons, sharing ideas with other teachers, etc). I've decided that I need to recenter myself and get back my creativity and love for the planning rather than the dread of the grading.

One of the ways I've tried to give back was through this blog, but as you notice, I've not done that much lately. I want to get back to the "check out this neat lesson" and "here's a cool link to share", etc...

I'm so grateful that there is a place to vent (somewhat anonymously), a diary of sorts that people can read and hopefully know that other people go through spouts of self-doubt. I'm grateful that this week is a time of celebration, to appreciate family, good food, and the blessings we have (and of course a few days to sleep in!).

Happy Thanksgiving to you all!

Polling, Margin of Error, and the Election

2008-11-03T18:47:00.000-08:00

Most of the time, hubby and I listen to NPR while in the car. On Saturday morning, while running around town frantically because I was about to buy a new car *woot*, there was an interesting tidbit about polling and margin of error for confidence intervals. I saved it and plan to use it for my uni kiddos next week when we cover this topic. I thought some of you might find it useful as well

NPR story on Polling

I posted this same link on the AP Stat Listserv and one of the other teachers had a blog about margin of error and common errors in opinion polls - I *love* the "urn" example!!

Pat's Blog on Polling

My dad....

2008-10-05T07:19:00.000-07:00

My dad, a wonderful man, is dying. In the spring, he was diagnosed with bladder cancer, so in April, he had his bladder removed. All of the tests were perfectly clear and things went very well. Then, 2 weeks ago, on Sept 17, our world fell apart. He had been having some coughing and congestion, so they did a chest xray which showed spots on his lungs. Since then, he's had a CT scan, a PET scan, and a MRI, which all show intense involvement thoughout his entire body, including a spot on his brain. The doctors can only make him comfortable at this point, although they are doing radiation for the brain to slow that progression.

My dad is a great guy - he was a Marine and served our country in the Korean War. As a member of the "Frozen Chosin", he was lucky to make it out of there with just some shrapnel and frostbite. He received a Purple Heart for his service.

My dad married my mom when I was 4 years old and literally raised me as his own. My biological father often remarks that he could not have picked a better man to take care of us.

Some of my favorite memories...
I remember when I first met him. He was sitting on my mom's piano bench wearing a ball cap. After hiding behind my mom for a while, I went over and took off his ball cap, revealing a very bald head! I screamed and ran back to my mom :)

I remember, soon after they married, he built me a playhouse. It was dark red and the bottom level was a sandbox (not a good thing in the country btw - lots of barn cats and sandboxes dont mix!!!). The upper level had a railing all around it and a little tykes kitchen. I *loved* that playhouse!!

I remember a lot of weekend afternoons spent fishing. We would go to the hilltop store and get bait and lunchmeat for sandwiches, then spend the day going from pond to pond. Dad liked to walk around the entire pond while fishing. If he caught something, he'd stay for a while, if he got all the way back to the truck, it was time to go!

I remember one Easter Sunday when we had gone to church, dad sat with us as always. When we got home, the entire yard was decorated with eggs and toys and candy. It always amazed me how he must have gone back home, decorated, and back to church in the time it took for Sunday school.

I remember a Christmas morning when I got up and there were ashy footprints all over the living room carpet, cookie crumbs on the table and a piece of red velour hanging from the fireplace opening as if Santa had ripped his pants open..

I remember when I was in 2nd grade, one of the convenience stores in town was giving away a Cabbage Patch Kid. You could sign up everytime you bought a coffee. Dad went in *every* morning to put my name in. On the day of teh drawing, I had actually gotten sick at school, so mom came to check me out of school and take me home. She stopped at the store to get some 7-up and my name was posted as the winner of the doll. They said they had actually drawn 3 times and my name was all 3 tickets!!

While he obviously showed love, it wasn't until about 10 years ago, that he ever said "I love you". What an amazing man.... I will miss him so much :(

Frog Ponds :)

2008-09-14T15:10:00.000-07:00

Ok, now that the rant is over, it's time to share ideas again!! Tomorrow should be a fun day - I hope!!

This summer, I found the following frog pond game at Dollar Tree, so I quickly bought 8 sets for my class. Tomorrow we will be using them to gather some data. Here's a picture of the frog pond setup:

This year, I am trying to make a real effort to "teach" using data we collect in class. Here's the datasheet for the frog pond.

In Geometry, we are playing a review game as well, so I'm hoping that tomorrow is a nice, easy day overall :)

Now to go veg and watch some TV - I'm at a stopping place early for once!!

A Mini-Rant

2008-09-14T11:07:00.000-07:00

Do you ever feel that your best just isn't good enough? Sometimes I feel that way. I bust my ass every day, spending evenings and weekends finding creative ways to teach my students, but we rarely hear a "wow, you guys did a great job! Thanks for all of your hard work and effort".. instead we hear "Cool - let's see if you can do better"

Don't get me wrong - I'm all for continuous improvement, I do push myself to do better, I am a mostly self-motivated person... but it's still sometimes hard to constantly hear how you could have done better. Eventually you wear down and wonder "why even try?" *sigh*

This mini-rant is a product of test scores, which all districts now use to determine too much about the classroom. Rather than celebrating that 89% of our on-level Geometry kiddos passed their state-mandated Geometry exam (compared to 68% overall throughout the state), we are given a list of our "weaknesses" and asked to create a plan to do better. For me, one weakness was right triangle trig. Now considering that I covered SOHCAHTOA on Friday before the exam started on Monday, I know this was a weakness, but I was tickled pink that my students overall got ANY of those right!

I really try to be a positive person, so I apologize for this rant, but I'm tired and frustrated of demands placed on teachers without so much as a pat on the back.

A couple of updates :)

2008-09-01T15:34:00.000-07:00

Ahhh - can I start the weekend over? I had a fairly relaxing weekend at the lake (minus a snafu with my dad), but with no time to grade, now I feel under the gun :)
However, before getting my nose to the grindstone, I wanted to give you guys an update on a few items around here...

The Professional Day....
The presentation went VERY well. I was pleased with how it turned out. Major kudos to Dan Yates, who had already typed many of the AP questions and sent them to e so that I was able to copy and paste the stem of the problem and graphics and then just add in the adapted questions for the Algebra and Pre-Calc classes. The handout ended up being 12 pages front/back and the other teachers seemed to really appreciate it. I was so nervous, but in the end, it was worth it.

The Geometry Challenge....
When I posted the pictures of my classroom, one was of a bulletin board called the Geometry Challenge. This is my Geometry extra-credit board, where kids can weekly earn extra credit for answering a problem (problems come from the NCTM calendar from the magazine Mathematics Teacher). I print the posters using a free software called PagePlus and paste the pages together. The kids seem to really enoy this weekly puzzle. Here's a pic of the board w/ the PagePlus pages:

I hope things are going well for all of you! Off to grade a mountain of papers :)

I need your help!!!

2008-08-24T16:52:00.000-07:00

I was oh so proud of my accomplishments this weekend... until at 6:30pm on Sunday I remembered that I'm scheduled to present at a Staff Development day on Friday! EEKKK! So now I need your help in brainstorming :)

When this year's AP Stat exam was released for teachers to see the questions, I noticed that there were 2 questions that had parts that were related to Algebra content. One of them had students creating a scatterplot and the other had students describing the slope of a regression line. Of course this was in May, so I asked the AP Calc teacher if she was interested in co-presenting a pre-AP math session for the math teachers at my school. Of course with the extreme busy-ness of the summer, I didn't think too much about the session...

Of course, now it's August and that session is just a few days away! So I need your help. The title of our session is "Adapting AP Materials to the Pre-AP classroom". I have about 25 minutes to fill and I am at a loss as to what to do.

So pretend (ha!) you are a pre-AP teacher (Algebra/Geoemtry/Pre-Calc).... :)

What would YOU like to get out of this workshop?

My class is finally done!!!

2008-08-13T19:54:00.001-07:00

Holy moly - it took *forever*, but my room is finally done! I left school at 7:40pm and the first bell will ring Thursday morning at 7:45am! This is the longest it's ever taken me, but I did do a bunch of new decor, so I'll blame it on that! heheh

Here's the view of the front of my room. Notice all the new posters (woohoo! Thanks to the free poster site!) - you'll also see that I decided to matte them! The hanging thing on the left is where I place makeup work each day, sorted by hour. Behind my podium chair, I wish you could see the spaghetti tangle of cords - I did the best I could to bring order to an unorderly mess :)
Working our way counterclockwise, this is the "cabinet" side of the room. Class sets, turn in box, staplers, etc. The four small posters on the right side came from Walmart for $1 each (woot!)

Moving on around, I must give kudos to hubby for his 1/2/3 posters that he made me. These correspond to Costa's Levels of Questioning. The gray box below the 1 poster is for their POD folders (Problem of the Day). The corkboards are where I post grades.

This is the back right side of my room. Notice the bulletin board still to be hung on the wall :) Student bulletins will go there. Our back walls are both magnetic and writeable, so that's where my birthdays go. The file crates are where my aide files papers to be returned. Also, more free posters!!!

The other back corner. More posters :) Also on the back wall is an "In the News" banner that I got from Dollar Tree. Under it, my aide (who came in today to help me - is that not amazing!) put up articles and comics that I cut out of the newspaper that pertain to math or statistics. You can also see my lame attempt at a bulletin board - give me some slack here, it's been 10 years since I taught middle school! I want to do a Geometry Challenge of the week where I post a math problem (this one is from the NCTM calendar this month). Correct submissions will earn a bonus point on their test.

And finally back around to my desk area. Not much to report here - just lots of storage LOL

I am so glad that is done for another year - what a mess it was! :)

Now to bed - 5:45 will come too durned early for me!!!

Study Skills....

2008-08-10T14:49:00.000-07:00

OMG - School starts *TOMORROW*....

I am sooo not ready! But ready or not, the kiddos will be here on Thursday... EEEKKK!

So, in my last minute style, I am working on the study skills information I want to give to my classes (Stat particulary).

As I've mentioned before, I don't think that many of my students have been taught how to take notes, etc, so I want to think it out here if you don't mind!

AP Statistics
Thursday:
First day of school!!!
Passing period - I am at the door welcoming them and handing out a student information form for them to fill out. A first-day seating chart is on the board with textbooks and syllabus on their desks. Bell rings. Students continue filling out info sheet. Then we get into "What is Statistics" to give them a taste of what data is all about. Their homework assignment is to read Chapters 1 and 2 (10 pages) and take notes on it for discussion tomorrow. If time allows (12-15 minutes), do AP question 2000-#1 (or give as homework???)

Friday:
Students come in. A notecard is on each desk with a warmup question on the board (Why did you take this class maybe? or something about their mathematical history?). I'll go around the room to look at their notes from the assigned reading and take up the 2000-#1 if I give it as homework. We will then briefly discuss how to take notes from a textbook (see handout). After that, we are ready to jump into the lecture for Chapter 2, so start with a handout about notetaking, then they take notes while I lecture. Also discuss notes posted online.

Not sure yet where it fits in....
- Discussing policies from syllabus
- Assigning study groups - want this in place while discussing notes - want to use the "compare notes w/ your buddy" as a study strategy and working through examples in class.

*sigh* Can I go back to May and have a re-do???

More Random Thoughts...

2008-08-02T08:40:00.000-07:00

The vote is still tied on the matte dilemna :) I decided not to go laminate them until I have had more time to think about it. I plan to go to my classroom on Tuesday, so as long as they are laminated by then, we're good :)

Do you ever have something that you love and hate? For me, it's back-to-school...

Why I love it:
- New school supplies!!
- A clean slate
- A time to try new things

Why I hate it:
- I never feel ready
- I get very overwhelmed and stressed by what is left to do
- I like sleeping in :)

But, ready or not, Aug 11th will be here soon. I am not at all ready for it, so this next week will be pure hell I'm sure.

When on vacation with my parents, we went to the Half-Price book store (Love that place!!) and I found Fred Jones - Tools for Teaching for $10. I'm about halfway through and I am really enjoying it. But it has brought up a few issues that I've never done at the HS level, so I thought I'd ask you guys! To be perfectly honest, this blog has been way more theraputic than I ever imagined. I did not think I would write as frequently as I do, but I really appreciate the opportunity to get the ideas out of my head and onto paper, and of course I value the input that you guys give me!

Anyway, one of the ideas from Dr. Jones's book was to post your rules. Since I now know that Office Depot can print posters for me, I am thinking of doing this. Here are my rules that I put into my syllabus (with more explanation of course!)... should I print them to hang on the wall?

Classroom Expectations:
- You are expected to attend class and to be on time
- You are expected to actively participate in classroom discussion and activities
- You are expected to bring your materials to class everyday
- You are expected to assume responsibility for your own learning
- You are expected to respect everyone’s right to learn without distractions

The other thing he mentions is icebreakers. I have never done an icebreaker, opting instead to do a review activity. However, I do use a study buddy/partner system, so I am wondering about somehow merging these two. I have thought about doing some kind of compare/contrast Venn diagram, followed up with a partner problem worksheet - which is where partner A does the first column, partner B does the second column. The problems are different, but the answers are the same. (This would be for Geometry btw)

One of the other teachers at my school does "groups" in her AP Calc class. She has everyone stand up and separate by which half of town they live in. They find someone in their group to buddy up with. This ensures they have someone they can call/meet with that lives somewhat close. The pair then finds a pair from the other half of town and this group of 4 then becomes a team. This team then meets as a study group, review sessions, etc - each test, the teacher calculates the highest team average and they get a silly prize. I've thought about using this in the AP stat class, thinking the peer tutoring aspect might be a good one.

I would love to hear from you guys - let me know if I'm on the right track here or not.

To Matte or Not to Matte

2008-08-01T13:13:00.000-07:00

In a few hours, I'm headed to the local teacher store to laminate some posters that I had made. I found them on a free print-a-poster website and enlarged them to 11x17 and had them printed for 98 cents at Office Depot.

Now I have to decide if I want to matte them with construction paper to "frame" them. That's where you come in :) Help me decide...

To Matte:

Or Not to Matte:

Is the question - leave your answer in the comments!! :) Thanks!

Home from Vacation :)

2008-07-31T08:05:00.000-07:00

Do you ever have a whorlwind week that just exhausts you? :) If so, then you've been on vacation with my parents!!! I had to take naps and they were still going strong! (Mom is 71 and stepdad is 77)

Hubby and I went up on Friday night when he got off work and had a lovely dinner with my Dad/Stepmom before heading over to my Mom's house. Mom lives about an hour away from us and she wanted to leave Saturday morning at 4am to head to Wisconsin. My stepdad's sister lives there and is not in the best of health, so we wanted to make sure to see her while we still had the chance. As with all vacations, we had a couple of false starts before finally setting out about 4:45am. We drove for 11 hours total (plus pit stops and breakfast), arriving in Madison about 5:30pm. We went to see my aunt for a few minutes before checking into our hotel.

Sunday morning, we had breakfast, then it was off to the House on the Rock. I love this place! For $26, you can tour the entire grounds, including the world's largest carousel, the circus room, the streets of yesterday, the infinity room, etc. It is an amazing experience, but you are soon overwhelmed by all of the *stuff* that this guy collected. On the way home, I was worn out - we had spent about 5 hours touring through all of the grounds, so we stopped for dinner then did a bit of shopping. Madison has a 2-story Walmart, which was fascinating to me :) The first floor is a parking garage and you ride up an escalator to the store upstairs. When you come down to your car, there is even a escalator for your shopping cart... hubby wanted to keep riding that just for the cart fun :)

On Monday, we started our day with breakfast at Perkins, which is a neat diner-like chain with excellent food :) Then we were off to the aboretum (sp?) before going to Henry Vilas Zoo. The Zoo is in the middle of Madison, not too far from our hotel and is totally free. We did leave a donation of course! It was one of the best zoos I've ever been to! We spent about 3 hours there, then off to lunch at Culvers, which is a burger chain up there. Then we were off to Cave of the Mounds, just west of Madison for a tour. I have always been fascinated by caves - they are such geological marvels!

Tuesday, we started our day at Perkins once again, then off to the Olbrich Botanical Gardens and the Butterfly hatchery. Oh my goodness - what a GORGEOUS place! I could have spent all day in the gardens with a book and the waterfall beside me! Then off for a bit more shopping. On Sunday, when we had headed to the House on the Rock, we had noticed a cheese factory on the way, so we went to the Arena cheese factory to purchase some gifts. Since we were so close, we went to Talieson, which is Frank Lloyd Wright's homestead and took pictures of his home, the Midway farm, the Hillside school, and Unity Chapel, where he was orignally buried. His remains are no longer there, as his last wife's dying wish was for him to be buried in Arizona with her at Talieson West. Since the Talieson tour was $80/person, we stayed on county roads and took pictures from public access areas :)

Wednesday started the long trek back home. We left Madison at 5:30am and got back to Mom's about 6:00pm. Hubby and I pulled into our driveway about 7:30pm and totally exhausted. This weekend is a time for rest and school work :)

I will get pics uploaded as soon as I can! Between us and Mom, we took over 800 pictures this week!!!

I think I'm getting old because if I don't write it down....

2008-07-22T07:53:00.000-07:00

This week, I've been reading various teacher forums and message boards (teachers.net and atozteacherstuff.com). One of the posts that commonly appears is about organization, lesson plan books, etc, so I decided to share my lesson plan book.

I have tried all sorts of commerical lesson plan books but they never worked for me. I needed an "agenda" of sorts to keep me organized - complete with lots of to-do list space, however I could never find one that fit my needs. (See Dan Meyer's blog dy/dan for more on to-do lists)

Thankfully, with the power of the internet, I was able to do some searching for agenda formats and piece together one of my own. I print out a year's worth (52 weeks) of these sheets, hole punch them and put them into a presentation folder - one of those that looks like a regular 3 prong folder w/ an acetate cover. Each week, the current sheet is on top, with older ones cycling to the back. I love this format because I have room for all of my to-do lists, appointment reminders, things that have to be done on a specific day, etc.

Two other must-haves for me organization-wise:
Printfree's yearly calendar - This is vital for me when dealing with pacing of my courses.
Monthly calendars for my students - I love these Word calendars because I can type my plans into them, print them out and hand them to my students for reference.

What do you use for organization?

P.S. - I had some more rambling thoughts last night but didn't want to make a new post :) So here they are...
I'm always on the lookout for new posters :) Here are some free printable ones if you have a color printer or you can save them off and take them to Kinko's to be enlarged...

Also, I really want to foster positive thinking in my classroom, so yesterday I found a you-tube video that I think I may show at the beginning of the year as kids are filling in their info sheets. I also thought about showing similar videos right before tests (during the passing period) to help the kids think positively. Any ideas??

Lack of Motivation....

2008-07-20T11:39:00.000-07:00

I have 3 weeks until I report to school... however, due to changes at my school, I'm not quite positive of my schedule yet. I know I will have 1 hour of AP Stat at the HS, the uni class of Intro Stats, but I don't know yet how many Geometry classes I will have at the HS because I may have to take on an AVID elective class. With 3 weeks left in summer and lots of uncertainity, I have not been as productive as I should be :( I know I need to get things to the copy shop ASAP, but until I know how many sections of Geometry I will be teaching, it's difficult to send things to the copy shop because I don't know how many copies to make. Thankfully I redid all of Geometry last year, so I don't need a lot of prep time this summer to whip it into shape.

That all said, I am struggling with getting things done. The ideas in my head keep swarming and I can't make them stop. I spent some time last week brainstorming with a friend, but that just made the confusion in my head worse :) I hate having to pin down to an idea because a better one might come along soon.

To make matters worse, I have had a very disjointed summer - this past week and this next week are the first time all summer that I have been home for two weeks in a row. Today (Sunday) is the first weekend all summer that I haven't just returned from a trip or prepping to take a new one.

What I'm suffering from is due to lack of motivation.... not even the school supply aisle has cheered me up :) So, instead, I'm turning to you! Help me out - what new things are you doing in your classrooms this year? What ideas do you have to share with others?

Nose to the Grindstone...

2008-07-15T19:12:00.000-07:00

It hit me yesterday... the kiddos come back in one (yes one!!!) month!! EEKKK!!!!! All together this summer, I have been gone for 3.5 weeks for staff development (and another week for meetings at my school), so it has been a very busy summer and I've not had a lot of down time overall. Starting this week, I am "home" for the rest of the summer (other than 5 days vacation w/ my family), so I'm trying to get things off my to-do list and sent to the copy shop.

One of my previous posts dealt with some changes I wanted to make. Since I value your opinions, I decided to post some of the changes as I get them finished....

First up is my previous notebook idea...
I knew I needed to come up with a rubric/grading sheet to help make life easier. I decided to modify my old assignment sheet and expand on it to list out the materials I wanted in their notebook and in the order I wanted it to appear. Here is a copy of the newly revised Unit 3 assignment sheet. I should also note that I decided to collect notebooks each unit rather than quarterly. This may end up being a hassle, but I'm willing to try it.

Since one of my goals this year is to work on study skills, I am requesting evidence of student note-taking as well as a summary sheet for each chapter that forces them to reflect on that chapter's material. The summary sheet is an adaptation/compilation of Power Notes from AVID plus I-can statements from a blog I read last week plus a bit of self-assessment and peer tutoring. I hope it works as well as it does in my head. heheh

I would love to hear your thoughts!! I look forward to your comments :)

A Week at a Glance

2008-06-29T07:32:00.001-07:00

First I must apologize... I had planned to document the AVID summer institute, but I did not. We were busy from the time we got up til the time we went to bed. Morning strands (content areas) lasted from 8-12 each morning, then we met with our site teams in the afternoon. We had 8 people from our district on our site team, so after lunch each day, we met back at the hotel around 2pm to have our site team meeting. Typically these meetings lasted until 5ish, then we met for dinner around 5:30. Thankfully our hotel was within walking distance of the West End as well as the trolley to West Village and Uptown. While this was an exhausting week, I always come away feeling very energized for the new year. I love working with other teachers in my strand as well as my site team.

On Friday, our presenters had us write ourselves postcards, with one side decorated with a "mind map" of our week. On the other side, we wrote ourselves a note to remind ourselves of the ideas we had this week that we wanted to do next year. I thought it was a very neat way to finish out the week.

Now to leave you with some quotes from the workshop...
"If, as teachers of mathematics, we don't take the time to teach them [students] how to read a math textbook, no one else will" - Jim, presenter

"I'm a much better tutor in classes I don't know well because I question more. In math I have to bite my lip to not tell them the answer" - Jim, presenter

"If learning is not taking place, neither is teaching" - Keynote speaker

"If a student fails 2 classes, 1 of which is Algebra 1, they have an 80% chance of dropping out" - Keynote speaker

"There are no shortcuts to a place worth going" - Eddie, luncheon speaker

"Don't look down on someone else unless you are helping them up" - Eddie, luncheon speaker

As always, I appreciate you stopping in to read about my adventures. If you have the opportunity to go to an AVID summer institute, I encourage you to go. It is one of the most professionally rewarding experiences of my career. Now I'm home for a few days (yay) before going away for the holiday. Until next time, take care :)

Streetcar Named Matilda

2008-06-23T18:48:00.000-07:00

Well, here we are at the AVID summer conference. We left the high school yesterday in 2 vans to venture down to Dallas, TX for the conference. Other than a short (ahem) detour (aka, we were LOST!), we made it here without too much drama. It was nice to visit (aka gossip) with other teachers from the school about the goings-on since Memorial Day.

Today, roomie and I got to sleep in (woohoo). There were optional meetings starting at 9:30am, but neither of us were required to be there, so we were able to use the time to sleep in, read, take a walk to Dallas's West End shopping district, etc, before going to register for the conference. After registering, a few of us visited while waiting on the keynote speaker. The keynote was presented by the super of Midland ISD and I felt his speech was very well done. Then it was off to the first site team meeting. Our district director (DD) split us into two groups. She kept the teachers that were new to the AVID program with her to learn about the background, our goals, etc. The remaining 2 teachers and myself have been involved in the program for a while and our goal was to define the curriculum for each grade level. We got a lot done, so we headed back to the hotel a bit early to type it up.

The hotel is a nice hotel in downtown Dallas - however, internet access costs $15.10 a day!!!! It is complimentary to the "president club members", so I quickly joined the (free) President's club and talked them into letting me have internet access now instead of on my next visit LOL!

We all met for dinner in the lobby and took a vintage streetcar named Matilda (built in 1927 in Australia) to the West Village for dinner. It was a delightful ride and I took pictures, but they haven't arrived in my email box yet :) We visited for a while at dinner, then took a different streetcar back to the hotel where it's now time to curl up with my book and crash...

Tomorrow we meet in the mornings for our "strands", which are content level (mine is math obviously), then another site team meeting in the afternoon. I am looking forward to the morning strand, I really learned a lot last year.

As with all adventures, I'll update you tomorrow :) Until then, have a great day!

More Rambling Thoughts...

2008-06-20T07:20:00.000-07:00

Due to this summer's schedule, I am having to fit in school work whenever I can. My last day of school was May 27th, had the next day off, then meetings on the 29th and 30th. Got another few days off before leaving for the reading on June 4th. Got back into town June 12th and slept for a couple of days (seriously!), then I'm off this week. I leave again Sunday for another workshop and will be back on the 27th. The following week is the 4th of July and we'll head to the lake for the weekend, then I'll stay and work with my sister the next week, then I'm off for a couple of weeks before vacation with my family. Then it's August *sigh*. I'm tired just thinking about it!

Anyway, due to the craziness listed above, I'm working on school items at a somewhat leisurely pace, yet with the ticker in the back of my head counting down the days....

Since I now have a new homework policy (thanks ap-calc listserv!!) and have plans to teach how to read a textbook (a vital skill IMO), I then needed to figure out how to assess the notes.

Notebooks....
I've never had students turn in their binders mainly because it was rather intimidating to see 30 binders stacked on my desk. However, due to the note issue, I think I am going to have the AP stat kiddos turn in their binders 4 times a year (fall break, winter break, spring break, and after the AP exam). Each quarter then, I will assess their notebook for the material from that quarter. I want their binder organized in sections (Important Papers [syllabus, formula sheet, calendars, etc], Unit 0, Unit 3, Unit 1, Unit 2, ..., AP Review, etc...). Within each unit, the work should be in chronological order (assignment sheet, vocabulary list, chapter notes, chapter HW (which is of course optional), chapter handouts, chapter quiz/project, next chapter's stuff, test review). And.. instead of the "retake" idea for homework, I will have the HW in their binder be extra credit towards that quarter (which is such a small amount that it doesn't mean anything, but they seem to think it does! LOL). That means I will need a rubric and maybe a table of contents (?) for checking student organization. If you do a notebook in your class - can you share a rubric???

Late Work...
Another issue that annoys the heck out of me is late work. In the past, I have given my stat kiddos some control over this, but I've not found that it works too well. I had been giving them "late passes" that they could use when they needed to in order to turn something in late. Most kiddos though, try to abuse this policy, so this year I'm going back to what I do for my geometry classes. It is due the day it's due. If you turn it in 1 day late, it's automatic 80% credit, after that it's 50% credit. In Geometry, I actually go around and pick up paper from each student. If they don't have it, they fill out a form for me documenting why they don't have it ready on the due date. It works rather well in Geometry, so I'm going to give it a shot in AP.

Review Quizzes...
One of the mandates of my district are "Essential Elements"... which simply means we have to identify in each of our courses what we consider to be vital information. For several years, in AP, I've done vocabulary for these EE's. Another district mantra is "Don't give them permission to forget"... in other words, many kids simply "rent" the information for the test and don't really "own" it for the long term. Part of our district's goals is to make sure students retain for the long term, therefore our assessments are supposed to be cumulative. I do have some cumulative elements in my AP class, but not so much on assessments, so this year I am merging these two district goals into "Review Quizzes". Each week, I will give a RQ that has 5 vocabulary words and 5 AP-style multiple choice questions from anything we've covered so far. (Oh - and we have to do an item analysis on these for the purposes of remediation *g*).

and my last new change...

PODs...
For the past couple of years, I've done PODs (Problem of the Day). These have been multiple choice questions, but since I am putting the MC on the RQs, I am changing the PODs to be more conceptual type questions from their reading and lecture notes. For example:
1) Your classroom "buddy" was absent when we learned how to check for outliers in a dataset. Explain step-by-step how to do this process for your friend.
2) What is the main difference you should look for when determining if a probability distribution follows a binomial model or a geometric model?
3) How are segmented bar graphs related to the chi-square test for two-way tables?
4) Name some advantages and disadvantages to creating a stemplot.
5) If you need to take a sample of our HS population, describe a way that you could do this using a cluster sample.
etc....
Each Friday they will turn in their POD sheet and I will pick a random day to grade. I'm hoping this daily writing practice will help them in learning technical writing - which should help on tests, quizzes, and the AP exam.

Well, I think that's it for now... as always, if you have feedback, I'd love to hear it!